


Carry Your Throne

by proudspires



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: And there IS romance, Because you know..... Roman is Roman, Birds of Prey, But I promise that it's complicit, DC universe - Freeform, Daddy Kink, F/M, It can be kind of dubious sometimes???, Murder partners, Organized Crime, Original Female Character - Freeform, Pillow Prince, Power Play, Roman Sionis - Freeform, Roman Sionis is a power bottom and you can't tell me anything else, Romance, age gap, also bending canon for my personal pleasure what can i say, don't bind me to your laws, only sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:00:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 76,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23696614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proudspires/pseuds/proudspires
Summary: "Who among us has not been a predator?" — Sherman Alexie, from "Sonnet, with Pride"In which Roman Sionis has never once before accepted being told no, so there is no reason why he would start now.(Or: how many times can Roman Sionis stick his hands in the pocket of another man before he gets caught up in a game he doesn't want to play anymore?)
Relationships: Roman Sionis/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 76





	1. two crowns & a gold cup

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! It's been a bajillion years since I posted here. Don't worry; it's not like I was writing stuff and just not posting it; I really wasn't writing! She really did that. ANYWAY - this is a fic that is absolutely and entirely gratifying my incessant need for Roman Sionis smut. I watched Birds of Prey two (2) days ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I have literally never written anything for the DC fandom, so please excuse if the characters seem out of place; I'm trying my best and quite rusty! But regardless, I hope you enjoy; there will be more parts coming. xo Please let me know what you think of this entirely indulgent trashy smut fic! Bonus points if you can catch my pun I make!
> 
> If you want a little muse while you're reading, I suggest Rules by Doja Cat (in the privacy of your own space. ; ) )

The first time that Roman Sionis saw her, she was in the Black Mask Club leaned up against the bar, completely at ease.

He’d never seen her before; she was a complete stranger to him, and that was rather uncommon when it came to the people who found themselves in his establishment. He was also certain that he would have remembered her. She looked like she was velvet to the touch, all sun-kissed skin, swathes of dark hair that fell down past the small of her back, and a body-tight silk slip of a dress that hugged every dip and curve of her body.

Roman had been in the middle of discussing business with a new associate, too, which made it worse - because when he saw something that he wanted, it encompassed every bit of his attention, completely and wholly. Ilarion Astakhov might have been irritated that Roman excused himself from their chat to close the distance between himself and the woman - he was fresh out of Moscow, conducting business for his mobster of a father - but if he was, Roman wouldn’t have known.

And quite frankly, he didn’t particularly care.

She was faced away from him, nursing a vodka soda that she had been holding on to all evening. He rested one hand to the left of her, leaning down to speak to her on the other side.

“You know, I’m usually pretty good with faces,” he said, unable to stop the little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, “but I can’t say that I recognize you. I certainly think I would have remembered you.”

In the cage of his arms, she turned around so that they faced each other. Most people might have been nervous having Roman Sionis right in their personal space, but the expression on her face was hardly afraid. He took the opportunity to drink in every detail of her face. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and one right on top of her lips, which pouted in a cupid’s bow, meticulously glossed. Her eyes were a deep whiskey color. _What a delicious face,_ he thought. _A perfect addition to my collection._

“I wouldn’t expect you to, since I’ve only arrived in town tonight,” she replied. There was a little foreign lilt to her voice, but it was almost imperceptible. 

“Just tonight? And you decided to come to my little joint here? I’m flattered.” The bartender had set Roman’s usual drink - a double shot of _exceptionally_ expensive Scotch, and a single ice cube - on the counter for him, so he picked it up and took a drink. Their eyes stayed locked together. “Roman Sionis.”

The woman laughed, brushing loose strands of hair out of her face. “Oh, I know who you are, Mr. Sionis. Why do you think I came here tonight?”

“Now I’m doubly flattered. You ought to be careful, you wouldn’t want to start giving me the wrong idea.”

She sighed, almost wistfully, and took a very small sip of her alcohol. He wondered why she wasn’t drinking the way most of his patrons did - and now that he thought about it, it seemed strange for her to be here alone, sitting at a bar, when she could have sat alone at a bar in a dress anywhere in the city. Certainly it couldn’t have really been just for him -

(But certainly it could be, because who wouldn’t want to see and meet him? He was fucking incredible.)

A light pressure against his chest broke him out of his thoughts. Her slender fingers smoothed out the lapel of his suit jacket, and when she straightened up he didn’t budge an inch; they were so close that he could smell the jasmine perfume of her shampoo. She didn’t seem uncomfortable at their closeness. In fact, if Roman was any good at reading people - and he was - he would think she was leaning into it.

“You haven’t told me your name yet, doll.” His gaze flickered down, watching the silk of her dress against her body, and then back up to her eyes.

In his peripheral, he could see the corner of her lips twitch up. She looked like she was going to say something, and right as her lips parted - _sweet, so sweet, he wanted to press his fingers against that lower lip of hers and watch the goosebumps spread on her skin_ \- someone spoke up from behind.

“Varya, are you having a good time?”

Roman turned his head, wondering who had a metric fuckton of a death wish to interrupt. It was Ilarion Astakhov, the business associate, watching the both of them with his eyes narrowed politely. Zsasz was working his way through the crowd not far behind, looking as though he might have wanted to stop Ilarion from interrupting; but just as he was catching up to the man, Roman noticed Varya’s smile.

“Of course. Mr. Sionis was just introducing himself to me. You are familiar with my brother, Ilarion, correct?”

 _Brother._ Roman straightened up, cocking an eyebrow. “Your brother.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Twin brother, actually,” Ilarion corrected. “Varya was technically born a minute and thirty seconds after me, though the details often escape her attention. Mr. Sionis actually jumped ship on our conversation to come and speak with you, and since we are both _so_ similar looking -” And here, Ilarion had a wolfish grin that made Roman feel a spike of irritating uncertainty. “- I suppose we cannot blame him for the mistake, can we, Varushka?”

“Certainly I don't blame Mr. Sionis.” Varya’s smile was saccharine sweet, and she patted his chest where her hand had been resting from fussing with his jacket. “You cannot hold it against him, Ilya, you sore loser. After all, I am the prettier of the two of us.”

“You’ll have to forgive my rudeness,” Roman cut in, before they could take the conversation away from him. He couldn’t stand that, not having control of the room, and he felt wildly like a fool and he hated it. “I can’t stand to leave a guest unattended in my establishment. Zsasz?”

Victor cleared his throat. “Yeah, boss?”

“This is our associate’s sister.” There was a grit to his voice. It was a lazy oversight. “She wasn’t welcomed into our establishment as though she were. Tell me it won't happen again.”

Zsasz nodded confirmation. _Lazy. Sloppy._ It wasn’t like Zsasz, but the man also didn’t seem so keen on the Astakhovs - there was a suspicion in his gaze as he looked at the two of them, and Roman couldn’t say for sure that it wasn’t jealousy at the closeness he and Varya had; Zsasz had never liked that sort of thing.

“Yeah, it - won't happen again. I... apologize, Miss-”

“Oh, just call me Varya. Miss Astakhova makes me sound like a regency wife,” she tsked, waving her. “Now, Mr. Sionis, if you would like to resume whatever unsavory business you were conducting with my brother…”

Roman picked up his glass from the counter, finishing off the (significant) amount of alcohol still left in it before setting it back down. He smoothed back some of his hair - silently counting to three, feeling his pulse up in his throat for having the lack of oversight make him out to be some kind of fool - and then smiled, charmingly.

“Absolutely,” he replied. “Please, have whatever you like, on the house. And, Mr. Astakhov, if you would.”

He gestured to the table, allowing the man to go first. There was a brief moment of hesitation that took root somewhere deep inside of him - and he was glad that it did, because Varya caught him by the edge of his jacket.

“I enjoyed our chat, Roman,” she murmured. Her voice was as silken as her dress. She was gazing at him from beneath her lashes, thick and sooty and dreamy. “I hope you’ll find me again when you’re not busy.”

 _Such a lovely face,_ he thought. He spared so little mental power to thinking about the familiarity in how she used his name. _I have to have it._

Roman reached up and tilted her chin a little, just so he could really see her. She was so sweet; she would be his in no time.

“I would like nothing more.”


	2. rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman and Varya have a pleasant afternoon.

The Astakhov mansion was an incredibly exorbitant piece of architecture. Located just far enough on the outskirts of Gotham to give it some actual acreage, it was a wicked amalgam of white marble, gold accents, elaborate landscaping, gated driveways…

It was the kind of wealth that Roman would have had, were his father not the kind of man who abandoned his child. It was almost repulsive.

They made their way out of the car after parking just outside of the drive, Victor trailing a little bit behind Roman. He scoffed. The disgust in his voice was obvious, even before he spoke. “It’s a little much, don’t you think?”

“This “little much” is what we _should_ have right now,” Roman said, gritting his teeth. Things. It was all things. But that was what infuriated Roman the most about it - that they were things that should have been, could be, his. “Astakhov just has a daddy that gives a fuck about him. But we’ll see how long that lasts.”

"You know, someone told me old man Astakhov isn't even alive."

"That's idiotic," Roman scoffed. "If he was dead, we'd know of it - not in passing."

He hadn’t called ahead. He found it best to drop in on his associates unexpectedly; they were more honest that way. However, it seemed that the Astakhovs weren’t entirely out of their depth, as the armed guards seemed informed of him and allowed him in. As the door closed behind them and they entered the foyer, over the sound of soft classical violin he heard a familiar voice call: “To your right!”

Following the instructions, Roman pushed open the slightly-ajar doors into a grand, sweeping ballroom. It was entirely empty - clearly meant to be used for events - and gorgeous natural light filtered in from the floor-to-ceiling windows that exposed a lush garden outside. 

Upon further inspection, Roman found that the room did have, in fact, a few small things in it: an artist, working diligently on a portrait, and Varya, almost completely naked except for a slip of underwear and a bouquet of flowers gathered up to her bust, perched delicately on a chair.

Victor scoffed, again, like he couldn’t resist the urge to emit some noise at this blatant display of excessive wealth. Who the fuck got themselves painted anymore?

Roman’s gaze fixed on her. “Miss Astakhova, you are a vision.”

“Didn’t you hear me the other night, Mr. Sionis?” Varya tossed her hair to the other side, exposing the exceptional curve of her body. The blossoms rustled against her bare chest. Roman was overcome, briefly, with a vision of those flowers scattered on the floor, Varya laid back against them, watching him with those eyes. “Please call me Varya.”

“Don’t you think that puts me at a disadvantage when you frequently call me by a more formal name, _Varya?”_ Roman prompted. He wandered absently towards her, glancing at the ceiling which was clearly painstakingly painted to mimic the Sistine Chapel. Absolutely filthy, disgusting luxury. It made his fingers itch. He loved it. He added, “After all, you’ve only used my name once before.” The distance closed between them as he wandered along - there was no rush. With the warm, late-afternoon light drenching them, he felt in no rush to get anything done.

Varya had a slyness about her when she looked at him and said, “I get the feeling you like when I call you Mr. Sionis.”

It wasn’t untrue. He just wanted the circumstances of how she was saying it to be different. A hitch in her voice, a blush in her cheeks, biting her lip and digging her nails into him. Oh, but she was delicious, illuminated and with the bouquet of roses gathered up to her breasts.

“I would like us to be on familiar terms,” he insisted, even though he didn’t particularly care if she wanted to call him one thing or another.

“Very well,” she acquiesced. She waved at the painter, an apparent signal for a break, and came to a stand. The painter cleared his throat and began gathering up his things. She said, “Hold these for me, Roman?”, and put the flowers in his arms without waiting for his agreement. And just like that, she was there - in front of him, exposed, and perfectly comfortable; each slope of her body was smooth and delicate. Roman saw Victor wander out of the room to stand guard outside, but not without a dramatic roll of his eyes. 

Varya let her gaze linger with Roman’s for a moment - just a little one, just for a heartbeat - before the brunette turned and walked across the ballroom to where a robe was draped on a coat rack. “You’re very at ease with yourself,” Roman commented lightly, watching her. He held the roses, only because if he had his hands available to him he wasn’t guaranteed to behave.

Varya smiled at him, slipping into the silky robe. “I find the human body to be very beautiful, a work of art,” she said. “And by extension, that means that my body is a work of art - and meant to be viewed, by the people I care to let view it.”

She returned to him, taking the flowers back and clustering them for the painter, who had by then finished cleaning up. He said something to her in Russian - something that Roman could not have understood even if he tried - but the tone of his voice implied that she could tell him if something was wrong. Varya bid him goodbye, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

It was a strange interaction to witness; the painter either clearly knew who he was, or didn’t get a good feeling from him (both perfectly viable options), and that didn’t seem to unsettle Varya. Or, if it did, he couldn’t tell. Roman could not get a read on Varya - who she was, what she liked, what she was thinking. Her mask was shrouding her every thought.

He said, “I think I’d have to agree with that sentiment,” and watched the painter leave the room, skirting awkwardly around Victor standing outside in the hallway.

“You flatter me,” she teased. She secured the tie of the robe around her waist as soon as the artist had gathered the flowers to take his leave.

Roman leaned down so that he could speak close, lips almost brushing against her temple, his hand brushing the curve of her hips. “I’d like the opportunity to do it more often.”

 _“Roman,”_ Varya admonished, but she was leaning into his touch. She tilted her head so that their mouths were nearly touching. “Shame on you. Your poor Mr. Zsasz certainly did not drive you all the way here for you to flatter me.”

The scolding rolled so easily off of her tongue. _So close._ He could just kiss her. He could just grab a fistful of that beautiful, dark hair and crush her into him, kiss her until she was breathless, smear that pretty lipstick and make her moan. Instead, he said, “He’ll do whatever the fuck I want him to, for whatever reason I say.” After a pause: “And he’s not poor. I take very good care of our Mr. Zsasz.”

“You are cruel to him,” Varya murmured, and her tone was so pleasant it was as though she wasn’t remarking upon his cruelty at all. It was soft, a beckoning. When she said _you are cruel to him,_ what she really meant was _kiss me, Roman, I can see that you want to, take what you want._

“I’m a cruel man, kitten.”

“To do business with my brother, you certainly need to be.” She moved away from him, spreading the spell of their closeness thin, running her fingers through her hair and heading toward the entrance of the ballroom again. There was a strangeness about the way that she said that, as though Ilarion were such a separate entity that his cruelty would keep them from being on the same side. “And while I do think, Mr. Sionis, that you would gladly whisper wicked things to me as a recreational activity - and quite well - I am almost certain you did not make the journey out here to only do that. However-”

He caught her arm before she could get too far, pulling her back around. The inertia of the movement pushed her into him. He kept her there, gripping her hips. _Nobody walks away from me._ If a conversation was moving, or ending, it was Roman Sionis who decided it, and not anyone else.

The movement seemed to have caught Varya off-guard in a pleasant way. He could see a flush of color in her cheeks.

“However,” she began again (her voice was even, but there was a tiny waver in it, and he didn’t miss it) “Ilarion is out of town on business until the weekend is done, so I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

“On the contrary,” Roman replied, his voice husky, “I find that to be a very fortuitous development.”

His hand found the curve of her jaw, tracing the slope of it before pressing his thumb against her lower lip. They were alone now - as alone as they could be in the mansion of a Russian mobster - and he was acutely aware of her breath against his finger.

Varya’s hot-whiskey gaze locked on his as her tongue flickered out, brushing against his finger. She said, in the sweetest voice, _“Roman,”_ and he moved his hand back to grip her jaw so that he could kiss her, hot and open-mouthed. He felt her melt against him. She tasted just like he thought she would; sweet and wet and velveteen, and when his grip dug a little more into her hip, she moaned into his kiss.

“I knew that when I saw you in my club I would make you mine,” Roman murmured against her lips. She was a dream, flushed with a lovely high color, her body pressed up against his. A dream, and so close to being his.

“How do you know that I’m not making you _mine?”_ She breathed. She kissed him again before he could answer - to say that he owned, not the other way around - and he groaned, gathering up a fistful of her silk robe. Her fingers knotted into his shirt and tugged until he was pressing her up against a marbled wall, and he pulled one slender leg up around his hip.

“You are so fucking delicious,” he growled, running his fingers along her calf and gripping. Varya sighed sweetly against his neck and his hand wandered upward, squeezing her thigh. God, he wanted her so badly; all of his blood had rushed south, where it was needed the most. Varya kissed up his neck and her slender fingers slowly pulled the bow of her robe until it unraveled. The whisper of the silk against her skin was crippling in the quiet of the room. The robe cupped at her breasts, but slid off to expose the sleek expanse of her abdomen and down.

But when Roman went to kiss her, she stopped him, her fingers gripping his jaw on either side of his face with surprising strength.

“Ah-ah,” she scolded. “No playing the game before the rules are laid out.”

Roman’s voice was hoarse and indignant when he said, “Rules? I don’t know if you’re aware, but I don’t play by anyone’s rules but my own.” His hand had already lifted to wrap around her wrist, ready to yank her off.

“Don’t be a spoil sport.” Varya’s voice was sugar. Her fingers wandered down his chest and then looped around his belt, tugging, teasing. He hissed a breath outward. “Play the game with me, Romy.”

He was sure that his face did nothing to hide his feelings. “Tell me the rules, then, kitten.”

“Only looking,” Varya said. “No touching.”

Roman scoffed, pulling away from her and pacing off a few feet. He felt the pent-up energy boiling inside of him - he should just take her, make her his, make her say his name over and over again - but the cosmic fabric of the universe seemed determined to make sure that he was foiled at every turn.

“You can get as close as you like,” she continued. She almost seemed to enjoy him like this; as if to incite more of a response in him, she let the shoulder of her robe slip off on one side, and it pooled in the crook of her elbow, exposing her. He watched her like an animal, raking his fingers through his hair. “But you don’t touch art in a museum, do you?”

She was art. The perfect slope of her chest, the robe gathered at her elbows, the lengths of dark hair, long enough to strangle a man with.

Roman sucked his teeth, as if he were _really_ considering it. “No,” he acquiesced finally. His voice was dark. “No, you don’t touch art in a museum.” But he was closing the distance between them, trapping her against the wall in his arms, leaning down to almost-kiss her. “Unless you’re Roman fucking Sionis, and then you do _whatever_ the fuck you want.”

He heard, satisfyingly, her breath hitch. Her eyes trailed along his face, down to his mouth and back up to meet his gaze. She said, “Then why aren’t you doing whatever you want, Roman?”

Something welled up inside of him, and he thought it might be frustration; accessing that part of his emotions always felt like more trouble than it was worth. He was frustrated - because he wanted her. He wanted to make her a part of His Things, but wasn’t sure if she was worth ruining business with the rest of the Astkhovs. The sweetness of her voice betrayed the actual things she said; telling him what the rules were, telling him what to do. People didn’t talk back to him the way that she did. They knew better, and she clearly didn’t, and he didn’t know how he felt about it.

“Because,” he said, speaking the words against her lips, “you’re spoiled, Varya Astakhova, and you’re not going to get what you want so easily from me.”

He straightened up, collecting himself long enough to tilt her chin up to look at him. She was compliant and sweet, her cheeks dusted with a blush and the carefully applied lipstick ruined. It was nothing that matched the impertinent demands that came out of her mouth, a little seraphic brat. If she didn’t know who he was, she was going to find out.

One way or another.

“I do hope that you’ll join us at the Black Mask,” he added. “I’d hate for your evening to go to waste.” 

Roman turned away, buttoning his suit jacket and smoothing the hair back from his face as he pushed the doors open and walked out. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand; her fucking lipstick was on his mouth, a reminder of whatever had just transpired between them. He snapped at Victor, “We’re leaving.”

The car ride back was torturous. He could tell that Victor wanted to ask, and didn’t; Roman was in a foul mood, and Victor was the only person who seemed to understand that sort of thing. He stewed in the back of the car, wiping the lipstick off of his mouth and scoffing. _No playing the game before the rules were laid out._ Who did she think she was, to tell Roman Sionis what he could and couldn’t do? If anyone was going to lay out the rules...

No. She was right; that’s not how you played. And that was fine. Now, the rules were laid out, and if she wanted to play, she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sis really did that!! I'm just kidding.... I hope the first chapter was a nice little intro. I'm excited to explore these characters a little more and see how things go. (And live up to those tags I put in there, lol). This chapter was a bit longer, with a bit more in it... And I can't wait for Ilarion to come back from his trip. :')


	3. your heart is a dog fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varya gives Roman a little more to work with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm sorry it took so long for me to get around to getting the third chapter up. As penance, it is quite a bit longer than the other chapters, and I'm pleased with how it turned out! Shout-out to my sweet, dear friend Grimm, who proof-read this for me. ♡ Warnings for this chapter include pretty heavily implied gore, some blood, and you know. Roman being himself.
> 
> Thank you as well to all of you who have left kudos; I really appreciate it! ♡

Varya didn’t show that night, nor the next night either. As each minute passed outside of her presence, Roman’s mind felt clearer, more assured in his decision. Cat-and-mouse was a game that he was familiar with, and he was sure and certain that if the Astakhov heiress was worth anything, she would play _his_ game before trying to settle hers.

It was late on Sunday; the club was packed, and Roman was in the middle of mentally exiting a “conversation” with one of his potential business associates, Mateo Something-Or-Other. The man apparently had a sweet deal on some guns that he kept touting about, flashing it in front of Roman’s face. Now that he had gotten himself an audience with Roman Sionis himself, however, he was playing coy. 

He was infuriatingly simple-minded; all he cared to insist was that a family business needed to stay that way, and that there was no way he could possibly compromise that just for Roman. His arrogance felt oppressive, like humidity on a sunny day.

Roman didn’t see why not; business was business, and family didn’t matter for a flat fuck. Every second the man insisted it - “Mr. Sionis, surely you _understand_ the importance of keeping the business within the family”, like he didn’t fucking know how Roman felt about his own family (everyone fucking knew, it wasn’t a _secret_ , did Mateo really think he was so stupid that he couldn’t tell he was making a jab?) - Roman felt his irritation get a little higher. 

His fingers itched beneath his gloves. He stared at Mateo, but he was so busy thinking about how long it would take to carve his face off that he didn’t hear anything he was saying anymore.

Mateo’s sentence trailed off, and his eyes flickered from meeting Roman’s gaze to fix on someone standing behind him. A sweet floral scent broke him out of his murderous thoughts; he turned his head and saw Varya standing there, a tiny smile playing on her face. She looked awfully comfortable to be interrupting their conversation, and the flood of her perfume reminded him of how she had tasted the last time they had met.

A few days away from her had made him feel like any power she might have _thought_ she exuded over him was gone. But now, Roman was preening; here she was, come to him, just like he had wanted. It felt different to have her here again in his own territory, and it was intoxicating.

“Hello, kitten,” he said.

“I don’t mean to be a nuisance.” Varya looked amused. Clearly the mood of the conversation was not hard to read. “Mr. Zsasz let me over, but I can wait if you’re busy, Roman.” She tilted her head, and Roman saw Zsasz lingering to the side; he had clearly figured out that Roman didn’t care to continue his conversation with Mateo, or he wouldn’t have ever told Varya it was fine to approach.

“Yes, well,” Mateo said, cocking an eyebrow up; he seemed unimpressed at the newest addition; but he stared at Varya long, and hard, like he was trying to remember her from somewhere. “We _were_ in the middle of talking business, so-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Roman interrupted, waving his hand at Mateo, “and get out.” He’d forgotten for a blissful moment that Mateo was even there; now, every word that he spoke was just grating.

The look of indignation that crossed the gangster’s face was almost sweeter than this little high Roman was riding on now. What did Mateo’s dumbfuck family do again, anyway? Nothing he couldn’t just do himself, by himself, like he had always done.

“Are you suddenly deaf? I said _get out_.” His voice had rapidly flexed in volume, enough that even over the pounding bass of the music, a few heads turned.

Mateo’s jaw clenched visibly. Zsasz cleared his throat, a wordless indication that the longer he lingered, the more he was in peril; he was no longer welcome. He said as he got up, “You’re going to regret talking to me like that, Sionis.”

“I’ll be sure to remember that.”

Varya’s gaze followed Mateo’s departure, waiting until he was well out of ear-shot before she looked back at Roman. He waited - displaying incredible patience, in his humble opinion - before he said, “I was starting to think you had given up.”

The brunette visibly relaxed when he spoke, as though she had been somewhere far away. As though returning to herself, she let out a little sigh, and said, “I’m not so easily swayed.”

He was suddenly in an excellent mood from what he felt was a victory. The insufferable conversation with Mateo was gone from his mind already. Roman gestured her into the booth next to him, and when she slid in and settled there, right in the crook of his body like it was nothing, the warmth of her filled him up.

Her head tilted up to look at him, her gaze inquisitive. He traced the slope of her features with his gaze, from the heat in her cheeks to the cupid’s bow of her lips. “Did you really think I wouldn’t come?”

“I had a suspicion that you weren’t interested in playing a game you didn’t design,” Roman replied, “which would have been a shame.”

“You would have missed me.”

Roman laughed. “Do you think so?”

Varya’s eyes flashed, pleased she had elicited a laugh from him. “You are lucky I’m good at playing by the rules.” Her fingers traced a loose circle on the lapel of his jacket, and her gaze flickered away. He could read her now, more than he had been able to before. She wanted something from him, and it wasn’t something she thought she could get stripped to nothing with a bouquet of flowers in her arms.

“I must admit, I did not come here purely to enjoy your company.”

He feigned an ‘oh, really?’ expression, and the brunette’s eyes rolled playfully. It was a nice feeling, to have her needing something from him - needing _him_.

Briefly, he thought, _maybe this is still a ploy._ That nasty voice in his head, the one that reminded him that the only person he could truly rely on was himself, was quick to pipe up. _Maybe you’re still playing her game, Roman, and not your own._

“Ilya is still out of town, and he has taken our Alexei with him,” Varya explained, “but there is business that I need to take care of here in town while my brother is away. I want to borrow your Mr. Zsasz.”

Roman felt a little well of surprise spring up inside of him. He thought perhaps she would ask for something else; to agree to an unceremoniously bad business deal with her brother, or something to that effect. “Victor?” he asked. “I’ve seen the company you keep at home, doll. Why not just use one of them?”

She turned to look at Victor, mingling through the crowd and keeping his eye on things before making his way to the bar. “Unpleasant business requires unpleasant consequences. I hear he is good with his hands.”

Another spark of emotion lit inside of him; he couldn’t tell what it was this time. Pride? Jealousy?

“Victor is _my_ guy,” Roman said thoughtfully, “but I suppose I could spare him for you. If-”

“If?” Varya’s skeptical tone made him smile. The sense that he had her off of her game a little was an intoxicating one. She did not seem like the kind of woman who accepted contingencies - but she would. For him, she would.

He leaned down and his lips against her ear. He said, so that only she could hear him over the noise of the club, “If you ask nicely.”

There was a tiny heartbeat of a moment where it seemed like she may have been deliberating. Then, with the ease of a long-time lover, she pulled back so that their noses brushed and their breaths intermingled. It was an _almost_ kiss. Close enough that it might as well have been a kiss. He could feel whatever lingered between them pulling taut and ready to snap, and he thought, _this is it. I’ve got her._

She said, “Please, Roman?” against his mouth and he was sure she could have been asking for just about anything and he would have said yes.

“I couldn’t possibly say no to you.” 

Varya smiled, though he felt it more than he saw it. “So you _did_ miss me,” she coaxed. He clicked his tongue. He had spent most of the weekend reminding himself that there could be only one person in the world that wouldn’t let him down, and that was himself; it was easy to forget how electric she had felt, the way that she had looked at him that first night they met and every time after. 

Unafraid of him, dark eyes piqued with interest. _I know who you are, Mr. Sionis. Why do you think I came here tonight?_

While he was lost in his thoughts, Varya slipped out of the booth, out of the cover of his arm. She cut a silky silhouette against the backdrop of the club, and he took a moment to admire his soon-to-be-trophy.

“Will you walk with me?” she asked lightly, smoothing her hands over the fabric on her hips. Not a demand this time, but a request. “I could use some fresh air.”

Deliberating for only a moment, Roman got out of the booth and gestured for her to go on ahead, pausing to collect Zsasz.

“Watch things for me,” he said, “but I'll need you later.”

Intrigue glittered in Zsasz’s gaze. A little smile piqued his lips, and he nodded. “You got it, boss.”

Satisfied, Roman followed Varya’s outline to the back door of the club. No need to go out and see the crowd waiting to get in, after all. As soon as he was caught up with her, taking his time to get there, and the cold air hit him, he felt reinvigorated all over again.

“It’s easy to get swept up in there,” Varya said without prompting. “The music, the drinks, the heat - easy to lose yourself.”

A smirk crept over Roman’s mouth. As they let the door close shut behind them, Roman rested his hand on the small of her back. She turned back to him like it was an instinct.

“That’s the whole point, love,” he told her. “To lose yourself. You don’t go to a club to be yourself, anyway. Not _my_ club.”

She looked at him strangely. He thought he could just see underneath, see what she was really thinking, what she wasn’t saying to him at that moment. Finally, she murmured, “I find that I - lack the easy mannerisms needed to lose myself, in a club or anywhere.”

Her words struck Roman as easily the most true thing she had said to him, in the short time they had known each other. He sought to parse it out in his brain; it was control she sought, surely. But then, why did she insist on coming back to him, when she knew that she would have to relinquish that control to him?

“Do you know the story of Koschei the Deathless, Roman?” she asked, before he could comment on her previous words. 

He shook his head. “I can’t say that I have, but I imagine you’re going to enlighten me.”

She leaned back against the brick wall of the club, watching him in the dim street lighting. “He is like the boogeyman; my father used to use him as a threat, to get my brother and I to behave. He would say, _‘Papa Koschei knows your name, and he is coming for you, Varushka.’_ ” She smiled, watching him close the space between them, but there was something bitter about her smile, too, a wryness there that Roman wanted to cut out of her.

“My father never told me the part of the story where Koschei is more than just a boogeyman. He finds his Marya Morevna, his bride; he appears to her as a bird who turns into a man, just the way that she likes them; he takes her into the land of gods and teaches her to be _chyerti_ , to be a devil like him. She learns how to kill men for him. And even though he is cruel to her, he would never accept a world without her. She is the most precious thing to him.”

Varya’s smile warmed now. Her fingers played with a glossy button on his shirt, and she looked up at him through her lashes playfully. “I think you might be a _chyerti_ , Roman.”

“I think I could have told you that, kitten.”

Roman’s gaze searched her face for something, _anything_ , an inkling of what rippled beneath her dark eyes. Like before, she proved almost unreadable. But there was something there, something when she looked at him that he wanted to pin down.

The moment stretched between them, just long enough to feel like infinity, and before he could open his mouth to ask her she pushed off the wall to straight up.

“If you are willing, I would like to get this unpleasant business over with now, so that I can enjoy the rest of my night.” Her voice was lighter now. The hushed undertones she had been using before, sounding like she was somewhere else, were gone. Roman would ask her about it later, when she was more pliable, when getting information out of her wouldn’t seem like such a puzzle box.

He said, “I do like a bit of drama. Shall we?”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

Victor couldn’t have been more pleased to do something with his hands. The club had been surprisingly relaxed in terms of people causing problems, and Roman was sure that he found it refreshing to get out during normal club hours for something a bit more exciting.

The blonde left ahead of them to collect the poor fool who’d had the misfortune of causing problems for the Astakhovs; Varya and Roman waited in the same ballroom where not just a few days ago, Varya had been having her portrait made. The scent of the bouquet and the paints still lingered. With them, one of the guards waited patiently; he was stone-faced and silent, a hulking force of a man.

“What kind of business is this that you need Zsasz, hm?” Roman asked, reaching up and tucking a strand of hair behind Varya’s ear. There was a burning curiosity in him; it had always been in his mind that Ilarion dealt with the business, and that Varya enjoyed the benefits. The Astakhovs were self-made in many of the same ways that Roman himself was - but it didn’t sit right with him, not quite, knowing that this was an empire their father had created for them to maintain. It wasn’t just the same, even though Varya’s sweetness washed the sour taste in his mouth.

The brunette took a sip of her drink. Upon arriving home, she had immediately poured herself a vodka soda, squeezing half a lime into it, though she had barely touched it. It was surely beginning to water down by now. He was reminded of the first night they had met; she had been nursing her drink then, too. 

“Ilarion made the generous decision to invest in this man’s business,” Varya replied, “and it has unfortunately failed, so he asked me to play Repo Man for him.”

Roman made a thoughtful noise. “And you are collecting…?”

A little smile played across Varya’s lips, and the sound of the front door opening and staggering footsteps echoed in the foyer. “I suppose we will find out together. How exciting.”

Zsasz opened the doors to the ballroom. He shoved a man, bound by his hands, into the room, watching him struggle to stay upright. He looked a little roughed up, but all in all not in too bad of shape.

“So you really are consorting with Russian whores, Sionis?” The man’s voice was vitriolic, and Roman blinked in surprise washing over the immediate flush of displeasure at the aggressive statement. It was-

“Mr. Abarca, you are very difficult to get in touch with,” Varya announced, setting her glass down on the bartop. She sounded light, but Roman could see _something_ in her whiskey gaze - something that excited him. “You cannot imagine my surprise when I saw that, after Ilarion had tried to contact you several times, you were having a good time with our mutual friend here.”

Mateo was breathing hard. Roman could see a black eye forming on the right side of his face, and there was a bit of blood stained just below his nose; Varya had clearly told Zsasz not to worry about bringing him all back in one piece. The thought gave him a delighted sort of amusement.

“I had no idea who was going to be coming through those doors,” Roman announced. “What poetic justice.”

The man spit on the floor; it glimmered a ruby-red on the marble under their feet. The guard had closed the doors behind them. Just as Mateo seemed to catch his breath and straighten up, Zsasz grabbed the back of his head, shoving him forward to slam his face into the bartop.

“Can you really blame him, Mr. Abarca?” Varya asked him. Her voice was pitying, in the most patronizing way. “I mean, look at me. And look at you. Surely even you know that you look a bit pathetic.”

Mateo spit again, but Varya had already stepped away from him and moved behind the bar; it landed instead on the floor, when he had certainly intended for it to go into her face. “You fucking bitch.”

Zsasz looked at Roman expectantly. Roman nodded, and Zsasz lifted his head from the bar just to crash it back down and said, “Shut the fuck up.”

Mateo coughed. Blood colored his lips, and the bar top; _he really does look pathetic,_ Roman thought amusedly, and turned his gaze back to the brunette behind the bar. It was quite a jarring scene, if not satisfying; Varya, in a silky two-piece jumpsuit, hair curled and lipstick crimson as she washed her hands of Mateo, Zsasz enjoying the hell out of himself, and Mateo - bloodied, swearing, and desperately defiant, like he knew what was going to happen and he was going to try and stop it anyway. Those were always the most entertaining.

“I do believe that Ilarion made it very clear what would happen,” Varya continued. Her voice was conversational. “We had all of that merchandise ready for you. And then, imagine our surprise when we hear nothing from you? You disappear. Your phone number doesn’t connect. We can’t seem to find a way to get in touch with you. Now, I have ten thousand guns.”

She had come around the bar now, and Zsasz released his head and pulled him upright. She said, quite softly and sweetly, “What the fuck am I supposed to do with ten thousand guns, Mr. Abarca?”

“Go fuck yourself,” he spat.

“You know, for a man who’s very invested in his family business, I’m now convinced that there’s not much of a business to maintain,” Roman remarked casually. “Not following through on a deal, Mateo? I can’t imagine that’s very good for the _family._ ”

It was in his nature for the veiled threat to spring up, and there was a flash of something in Mateo’s eyes - perhaps fear, perhaps anger. Maybe both. Either way, it thrilled Roman, to know that he had that power.

Varya clicked her tongue. She looked over at Roman, whose amusement had been increasing as the scene played itself out. He hadn’t expected his evening to take such a refreshing turn.

“Mr. Zsasz,” she said politely, “if you would please hand off Mr. Abarca to our associate, I have need of your other talents.”

Zsasz waited, again, for Roman’s approval. When he nodded, the Astakhov guard took Mateo as soon as the blonde had moved away, and now he waited.

“Vitaly, what does Ilarion do with the ones that don’t pay?” Varya asked.

The guard looked thoughtful, as though he had a choice he could make. _“Ruki.”_

The brunette quirked a brow. _“Ruki ili pal'tsy?”_

Again, Vitaly took his time to answer. Mateo’s face was glistening with sweat and blood. Finally, he said again and with a small smile, _“Ruki.”_

She shrugged. “Hm. Very well. Mr. Zsasz, I apologize - I brought you to a job site and I’m terribly unprepared. I know you’re quite skilled with a knife, and it might take some extra work, but please cut off Mr. Abarca’s hand.”

 _“What?”_ Mateo’s voice was hoarse, and desperate. Roman did not bother to stop the laugh that came out of him.

“At the wrist joint is preferable,” Varya continued. She could have been talking about what she had eaten for dinner, and it thrilled Roman; he couldn’t stop grinning. The announcement had dug a little twist of excitement into his stomach. “But if the bone proves too tedious, I suppose you could go a little higher and lighten the load. I know it’s a bit more barbaric than perhaps what you are used to doing, but my brother is really a simple man and his policies are my policies.”

Zsasz’s grin was toothy, and wicked. He, too, seemed delighted. “I don’t mind working hard.”

“I knew you wouldn’t. That’s what I asked for you.”

Mateo struggled, but against Vitaly’s hulking strength, it was quite hopeless. “Roman,” he rasped, “Roman, please. I’ll do anything you want. Just - just don’t let her do this to me.”

Roman saw Varya’s eyes narrow. He felt his ego swell, just a little, even though he was certain that she didn’t like he wasn’t begging _her_ for his hand. He laughed and said, “What are you asking me for, Mateo? Even though you are incredibly boring to talk to, this wasn’t my idea. I’m just loaning Zsasz.”

“Y-yeah, but - you can tell him not to do it, and he’d listen to you!”

He laughed, thoroughly amused. _I’ll do anything_ echoed in his mind, sweet as candy. “Tell me, why the fuck would I do that? This is the most fun I’ve had all night since having to sit through your soapbox speech about the importance of keeping the family business ‘in the family’.”

Vitaly grabbed his wrist and slapped it onto the bartop, looking expectantly at Zsasz. Mateo was crying now. It was starting to disgust Roman, how much he was clinging to keeping his hands.

“You can’t do this to me!” He was so desperate. “Please, don’t do this to me!”

Varya sighed, shaking her head. She smoothed back some of the hair from Mateo’s face, almost in a motherly way. “I’m not sure why you would think it’s up to me, Mr. Abarca.” She sounded _almost_ mournful; and then, with a sudden icy hardness: “After all, I’m just a Russian whore.”

 _Delicious,_ Roman thought, when the fear entered Mateo’s eyes in full force. She waved a hand for Zsasz to go ahead and have his fun, turning away to top off her drink and wandering toward the doors of the ballroom. Roman fell into step with her quite easily.

“A whore, then?” Roman asked lightly, opening the door for her. He grinned wickedly when she looked at him, stopping in the doorway. Much like she had when they first met, she smoothed her hand over his jacket.

“I’m too expensive for you, Mr. Sionis.” She was teasing him. He leaned down and kissed her, hard, while the sound of Mateo’s pitiful cries for mercy changed into something more strained and choked. Zsasz had gotten to him, and now Roman closed the door behind them, so that the noise was only a distant glow for him.

When their kiss broke, they were both a little breathless. He said, “All you have to do is name a price, doll.”

Varya opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, a voice interrupted from the front doorway.

“Trying to buy my sister, Sionis?”


	4. empire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman deals with a chance run-in, and comes up with a solution to his problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi y'all! I've been taking advantage of a long weekend to get a lot of writing done, so I've been hauling ass on this. I'm really excited about how it's shaping up; I hope you all are enjoying it too! After last chapter I thought we could all use a bit of humor.
> 
> Translations:  
> idi suda - come here  
> vso, ostavanis - enough, stop.  
> poslushay menya - listen to me

It was not uncommon for Roman to find himself in a situation where he was sticking his hands where they shouldn’t be. In this case, it was very obviously having his hands on Varya Astakhova’s ass at the exact time her crime lord brother - who apparently made a policy of cutting off hands - returned home from a business trip.

Not that Roman was swayed in the least by that kind of information; it ran right in line with his own policies, but it was important to take things into consideration, like the fact that Ilarion Astakhov looked to be, perhaps, considering murder in the first.

Exercising next to no restraint, he offered, “Only if she’s looking to be bought.”

Varya scoffed, swatting his chest and pulling away from him. She didn’t do it in a hurry; it wasn’t as though she were embarrassed to be caught by her brother, but that the moment had come to its (un)natural end. “Cheeky thing,” she hissed with her eyes narrowing in amusement, and she looked back at her brother. Ilarion looked to be waiting quite expectantly for something. An explanation, perhaps, though the slighter and smaller of the twins seemed in no hurry to explain herself.

And she didn’t. “I took care of Abarca like you asked, Ilya.”

“I’ve never known you need your hand held doing something you’ve done plenty of times before,” Ilarion remarked. He looked pointedly at Roman, who only gave him a polite and satisfied smile in response. Ilarion was the kind of crime lord that Roman didn’t particularly like; the kind that benefitted almost strictly off of the gain of their parents, an empire of inheritance rather than hard work. And as easy on the eyes as he was, he didn’t seem too fond of Roman himself, which made it much harder for Roman to appreciate his prettiness like he could with Varya.

Ilarion tossed his keys into a crystal bowl behind him and shrugged out of his jacket. Roman was once again struck by the immediate similarities between him and Varya - even the timbre of their voices was the same, and the way that they held themselves. It was easy to forget that they were twins, when their personalities were so strikingly different.

“Well, you took Alexei with you, so Mr. Sionis was kind enough to loan us a man. What was I supposed to do, cut off his hand myself?” The sheer indignation in Varya’s voice might have been the same tone a child used when asked to do a particularly tedious chore.

Ilarion shrugged, as if to say, ‘Sure, why not?’, and she scoffed. During the entire exchange, Mateo Abarca’s cries had simmered into what Roman would have only described as broken whimpers. Soon, the adrenaline crash and the horror of his amputation would overtake him, and he would likely be unconscious. 

“Do you make it a habit of loaning out your men, Mr. Sionis?” Ilarion asked. His eyes were narrowed, as if he suspected ulterior motives behind the gesture. 

_He wouldn’t be incorrect if he did,_ Roman reasoned to himself. He shot Ilarion a charming smile, feeling a bit like the cat that had gotten the canary - only with an audience this time. “Only to my _favorite_ associates.”

“How lucky for us.”

There was something about Ilarion’s tone that he didn’t like. It wasn’t as though they were on bad terms; their talks the other night had gone well, concerning the sort of merchandise that the Astakhovs had a great skill in transporting without getting flagged by authorities. The only reason that he’d been talking to Mateo about the guns he _supposedly_ had was because Ilarion had jetsetted off on this trip or another the entire weekend.

And maybe a little bit because he wanted to fuck Ilarion’s sister. Not to say Roman wouldn’t ever mix business and pleasure, but in general-

“Your man does a fine job, Mr. Sionis,” Ilarion continued, almost reluctant to pay a compliment; he had opened the ballroom door to see how things were progressing. “I imagine he’s quite loyal to you, isn’t he?”

 _What a fucking question._ Roman felt his jaw tighten a bit. He said, “Yes, I imagine he _is._ ”

Ilarion made a noise, leaving the door open. “Well, I suppose then it would be in poor form for me to kick you out when you’ve done my sister such a favor. Please, make yourself at home - there is a living room there to your left. Varvara, _idi suda._ ”

Roman’s gaze flickered to Varya’s face, waiting for her to look at him and show him that was what she wanted him to do. He’d only ever heard Ilarion refer to her by Varya, and when her twin spoke, he saw the soft, romantic Renaissance lines of her face harden into something else. Suddenly, her expression held the same kind of cruelty that had been in her eyes when she had spit Mateo’s words back in his face.

He thought of her story from before. _And even though he is cruel to her, he would never accept a world without her._

Like slipping a mask on, Varya’s face lit in a sweet smile. She turned to Roman, resting her hand on his arm. “I’ll be right in,” she said to him. “Yes?”

He stared at her, long and hard for a moment, but there was nothing in her gaze anymore that made him think that there was something volatile between herself and her brother. “Sure, kitten,” he replied, feigning innocence. “Whatever _you_ want.”

He made a point to look at Ilarion before slipping into the living room across the hall. It was, of course, lavishly decorated, drenched in whites and accents of gold. It was nothing to his tastes. Even though the elegant couch was clearly meant to entice a person to sit in it, he wandered close to the doorway, making sure to stay out of sight, so that he could listen.

Varya and Ilarion were exchanging sharp and unforgiving words in Russian. Though Roman could understand very little of it, he could hear an edge to Varya’s tone that he had yet to hear anywhere else.

A beat of silence stretched. And then: “Let go of me, Ilya.”

Ilarion’s voice was low, but loud enough that Roman could hear the disgust when he said, “And go change your clothes. You look like a fucking whore.”

“Funny,” Varya hissed, “your _business associate_ Mateo Abarca holds the same sentiment.”

“ _Vso, ostanavis._ I’m tired of this conversation.”

That was the last of it, with the smart click of Varya’s heels against the marble flooring indicating to Roman that she had exited the conversation. He tried to measure up this imagery of the twins to what he had seen between them before - in sync, in tandem, a team in the most infuriating way; bound by blood. They had happily made him look a bit like a fool. This vitriol didn’t feel like it fit that picture.

“Roman?” Her voice when she called for him was sweet, as though nothing had occurred between herself and her brother just seconds ago. “I believe that we’re all done with Mr. Zsasz’s skills.”

He met her out in the hallway. His gaze immediately swept over her, like he might be able to see Ilarion’s fingerprints showing on her; there was nothing anywhere, not even a heat in her cheeks or a lingering irritation. He felt disappointment wash over him with the realization that she was hiding herself from him once again.

“Is that so?” he prompted. “Well, we won’t overstay our welcome.”

“You aren’t.” Varya’s voice was soft and insistent. She reached up and kissed him; it distracted him for just a moment from the thoughts churning in his head, when all he could really think about was the smell and feel of her, pressed up against him, on her tip-toes to be able to kiss him.

“Are you trying to distract me from your brother’s poor manners?” Roman asked, only part teasing. His hand had knotted into the fabric at her hip without a second thought. The brunette shot him a cheeky smile.

“You always see right through me, Romy.”

The pet name flooded him with a sense of possessiveness. He remembered her in the ballroom, flushed and out of breath, wanting, _play the game with me, Romy -_

“Miss Astakhova.” It was Vitaly, looming in the doorway like a mountain. Roman jumped and let out a low curse in surprise.

“God - Fuck, Vitaly, you’re like fucking Bigfoot and somehow manage to appear out of thin air.” 

Vitaly looked at him; his gaze did not hold the same kind of hostility that the other Astakhov guards did, and shrugged. “Being quiet is a benefit.”

“What is it, Vitaly?” Varya asked, unable to hide her amusement. Vitaly moved out of the way, blocking a good portion of the doorway, to let Zsasz through; the man had a good amount of blood on him, flecked in crimson, but his grin was unmistakable.

“We are done with the man,” Vitaly explained. _A man of few words,_ Roman thought a little dryly. _Ilarion could take a few lessons from him._

Varya beamed. “Excellent! Thank you, Mr. Zsasz, for loaning us your services. You would never believe it, but Vitaly is quite a soft man at his heart. He doesn’t like dealing with a lot of blood.”

“It is hard to wash out.”

“I don’t mind,” Victor offered, looking pleased with himself. “Each one is a different kind of challenge.”

She was quite happy at his words, and there was a strange sensation washing over him at the sight of their friendly interaction. It felt _jealous,_ but he wasn’t sure about who, or which way that jealousy was going.

It was this fucking house. It was the twins, and their insane opulence, and Varya’s perfume, and Ilarion’s unreadable and somehow extraordinarily; it was like some kind of magic, or -

_A land of gods and devils._

He needed to get out of here, so he could clear his head and make a plan for what he wanted.

“Well Zsasz, I think it’s time we take our leave, yeah?” Roman announced, filled with determination to get out of this hazy maze. The front door was just behind him, but somehow felt a thousand miles away; the gears in his brain turned sluggishly, desperate to formulate a plan but unable to when his headspace was so muggy.

“You got it, boss,” Zsasz said, nodding firmly and heading to open the front door. He glanced at Varya. “Miss.”

She gave him a little wave of her fingers. Roman had the distinct feeling that if he lingered any longer, he wouldn’t be able to find his way out, no matter how hard he tried. He leaned down, cradling her jaw with his hand.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, giving her a little smirk. “Don’t have too much fun without me, yeah?”

There was a little glimmer in her eyes when she replied, “I would never.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

Evening settled over the Astakhov villa. Nighttimes in Gotham were quite unpredictable; in the month of May, they were either incredibly muggy and hot, or chilly with brazing breezes. But in the outskirts of Gotham, where the Astakhovs had staked their claim on a generous stretch of land, the nights stayed cool. Without the smog and bustle of the city, the only thing they had to account for was late night mists that curled out the building like a great, shimmering snake.

The ballroom stank of bleach. Ilarion’s sleeves were rolled up to his elbows when he straightened up from the floor, tossing the wet rag into the bucket.

“You are rude to him, Ilarion.”

He closed his eyes, as though he were trying to center himself; no matter what closeness they had shared in the womb, Varya could almost never read him, not the way she had been able to when they were younger. When this beast of a burden didn’t sit on their shoulders.

Her brother _had_ been happy once. But that felt like a faraway dream, now.

“And you are desperate to leave,” he said at last. She had expected cruelty in his voice, but he only sounded tired now. “To leave me with this mess that you made.”

“Ilya.” Her voice was softer now. “I am not leaving you.”

“That -” Now the frustration spiked in his voice, and he wouldn’t look at her, but he gestured sharply with his hand toward where Roman Sionis had stood in their home. “He is almost twice your age, Varya, and I _see_ the way that you look at him - how _he_ looks at you, like he wants to eat you for dinner.”

“What he has for dinner is none of your business, I would think.”

“ _Poslushay menya,_ ” Ilarion snapped. He had finally turned to her now, and he towered over her, tall and dark. His jaw was set ferociously. “Unless you are going to get something out of him, forget about Roman Sionis. Business, or nothing at all.”

Varya watched him. She thought of Roman, and the way he cupped her jaw; how he kissed her, like he was starved for her. She wanted that, to be _desired_ so completely that someone would ache for her and never get their fill of her.

And his anger, too. His control, and the way that he lost it when he didn’t have control. She wanted that, too.

“Varvara.” Ilarion’s voice was hard, and cold. Her lashes fluttered absently, and she looked away from him. He was so different from Roman; where Roman felt everything, all the time, and didn’t bother to hide it, Ilarion remained statuesque. She could never tell how he felt about anything unless he was angry. “Tell me you understand.”

She knew that her brother cared for her. She knew that he wanted to keep her safe, and that he had done all that he could to bear her burden with her.

But she didn’t know if she could give him what he asked of her.

“Yes, Ilya,” she murmured at last. “I understand.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

“I’ve come up with the perfect plan.”

Roman made his announcement several mornings later. It had struck him, quite suddenly, as he drank his coffee and glanced out the window of his apartment to the teeming Gotham city sprawled below. Zsasz was engrossed in the newspaper, making a small noise at Roman’s words before dropping the paper on the table to look at him.

“The perfect plan…?” Zsasz asked, his voice trailing off as he waited for an explanation. Unable to stop the smile on his face, Roman let out a sigh; a few days out of the drug-like presence of the Astakhov twins had given him the clarity that he needed to truly figure out what he was going to do about this little obstacle he had in front of him.

He turned back around to look at Zsasz, taking a sip of his coffee. “To fuck Ilarion Astakhov.”

Zsasz did not look impressed. Rather, he looked confused; Ilarion clearly did not _like_ Roman, and while Roman was known to take lovers of whatever variety suited him, he was having a difficult time parsing out what exactly was causing this change.

“That’s great, boss,” he ventured after a moment. He came to a stand, not wanting his confusion to disappoint Roman too much. “Did - I just thought, like, the way you talked about him before, you didn’t really…”

“What? No, you - not _literally_ fuck him,” Roman sighed, exasperated. A considering look came over his face for just a moment, but then he shook his head, as if clearing his mind of a thought. “Yeah, I’m not trying to actually fuck him. I mean it in the metaphorical sense. The Astakhovs have gunrunning into Gotham by the fucking balls, Zsasz, and I can’t have that. Not here, not in my city.” He set his cup down. “On top of that, that entitled fuck clearly doesn’t want Varya around me, so I’m going to court the absolute shit out of her.” He sat down in his chair, sighing. _I can’t believe how fucking good I am,_ he thought.

Zsasz looked thoughtfully confused, as though he were _really_ trying to follow this erratic train of thought. “Oh.” He could tell it was frustrating Roman that he wasn’t marveling at his plan the way he ought to be.

“Zsasz, I feel like you’re not seeing the big picture here.” Roman pinched the bridge of his nose. “If I court her - like, you know, really court the fuck out of her - Ilarion can’t complain for shit. I mean, I’m sure he’ll try, but about what? I’m treating her too well? Then, I get Varya, _and_ I get the guns, _and_ Ilarion fucks off.”

It finally seemed to click for the blonde, and he finally grinned. “I’ve gotcha. It’ll be like you’re playing by his rules, but really-”

“The game was my design all along.” Roman grinned. The thought of it was almost giddying; the scales had fallen from his eyes, and now everything was laid out before him in perfect sequence. How could he have been so blind to it before? He just had to do what he did best.

_Take what he wanted._


	5. bloodline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little out of hand, which Roman always enjoys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just reeeeeally wanted a good laugh this time around, you know? I really like to wind things up before they crash down. :') Now that my three day weekend is done with the updates will come slower, probably... Unless I sacrifice my sleep to keep this writing groove, which I probably will. Thank you guys for reading and hopefully enjoying; it means so much to me!! Thank you to my gorgeous perfect friend SithMarauder here on AO3 for proofreading for me!! ♡♡
> 
> Translations:
> 
> vso - enough
> 
> Graznaya svenya - dirty pig
> 
> Maladets, nu tye otstoy - good job, dirtbag (or like, basically..... "good job, you absolute sludge at the bottom of my boots)

It started with flowers.

Ilarion heard a knock on the front door from where he had been going over some paperwork in the front living room. Frowning, he stood and stepped into the foyer.

“Varya?” he called. “Are you expecting someone?”

She was upstairs in the library, the sound of the light classical music fluttering down the staircase. “Not anytime soon,” she replied, kicking her feet out from under the blanket and wandering into the hallway so that she could peer over the balcony. Roman hadn’t contacted her in a few days, and she was trying not to let it bother her. _I’ll be in touch_ is what he’d said, and she’d taken that to mean she was supposed to wait for him. “What is it?”

Ilarion opened the front door to see Vitaly was standing there. He sighed. “You don’t have to knock to come in, Vitaly.”

“There are flowers.” Vitaly turned and moved aside for a man wearing a polo that featured an embroidered logo. _Mama Joan’s Flowers! Best in Gotham City,_ it touted.

“Delivery for Miss Varya Astakhova!” the man announced, clearly pleased to be doing his job. In his arms he carried a ridiculous bundle of red roses, each as crimson and as vibrant as blood on a marble floor.

Varya had made her way downstairs, her gaze lighting on the flowers. “For me?” she asked, reaching for them, but the man shook his head.

“Allow me, please, to set them down for you. They’re quite heavy, and as you’ll see -”

Ilarion cut him off to demand, “What the fuck is that?”

A short distance down the driveway, where the floral company had parked its van, another man was unloading a ridiculous vase containing an exorbitant amount of tiger lilies. 

“Flowers,” Vitaly answered, helpful as always.

“Yes, Vita, I’m not fucking blind. Why are they here?”

Varya had let the man in so he could set the vase of the roses down on a table in the foyer. Picking the card out of the vibrant blooms, she paused only to watch one more vase come in - and another, and another, until the room was swimming with the perfume of freshly-cut flowers.

She glanced down at the card. _Not one of these flowers is as lovely as you,_ it said.

“Roman.” It was Ilarion who said his name, his voice terse, biting. He had come up behind her and snatched the card out of her hand to read it more closely. “It is funny,” he continued, even though it sounded like he didn’t find anything funny at all, “I think maybe you do not know what ‘I understand’ means.”

“I haven’t spoken to him,” she defended, taking the card back. “Besides, is it that hard to believe someone finds me so charming that they would want to buy me flowers?”

“Roman Sionis won’t find you charming for long,” Ilarion hissed, watching the delivery men make their way out of the house once the four exceptional bouquets had found temporary homes. “He’ll get tired of you, and dump you. Quite literally, Varya. I am certain he would dump your body in a river when he is done with you.”

“He would not,” Varya snapped back. “Not all of us practice the same policies _you_ do, Ilya.” She dropped the card on the table, running her thumb over a velvety petal. The roses still had their thorns. “Besides, if Roman Sionis wanted to dispose of my body, he would find a more effective way to do it.”

“Very reassuring.”

“I think you are jealous you didn’t get any flowers.” 

“Vso. Get rid of them.” And with that he stalked past her, moving back into the living room to pour over his papers again. She scoffed under her breath, looking over at Vitaly, who had watched the whole thing with a quiet gaze.

“Vita, please take these out to the tables in the garden,” she said, and then paused. Her fingers paused over the lip of the crimson rose bloom. “But put these in my room.”

“Of course.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

That was the case for the next week. Roman made sure that every few days, Varya would be greeted with a different gift. First the flowers, then a beautiful painting, or a gorgeous bracelet; each with the same kind of simple card attached, decorated with platitudes that he would never say in reality but that he knew Ilarion would not be able to find fault with.

Occasionally, he would send something that was clearly meant for Ilarion: an expensive bottle of vodka, a knife with an elaborate dragon detailed into the handle. Each gift, Ilarion set aside and never looked at again. He grew tired of demanding Varya get rid of hers, and she didn’t.

Ilarion did not let his dislike of Roman keep him away from coming to the club to forge connections in the undercity of Gotham - and Roman didn’t _want_ him to stay away, because inevitably it brought Varya down with him, too. Roman had been able to pin down their game: their greatest upper hand was that not a single fucker in Gotham expected Varya to remember anything they said, let alone carry out a repo sentence later on. That was how they got people to relax. That was how they’d caught him off guard, in his own club - but no longer.

“Roman.” Ilarion’s voice, brisk as always, silenced the chatter between Roman’s guests for the moment. He didn’t go through the trouble of referring to Roman as ‘Mr. Sionis’ anymore, since there was a passive familiarity, as though by sheer number of interactions alone, good or bad, they were now acquainted by first name. After a week of showering Ilarion’s greatest treasure with gifts, Roman at least hoped they were on a first name basis now.

And then, in an attempt to play nice, Ilarion said: “Your club is very busy tonight.”

“Tonight and every night, my friend,” Roman replied with a grin, shaking his hand. _You fucker,_ he thought. _I’ll get you yet._ “Can I introduce you to my acquaintances? Boys, this is Ilarion Astakhov. We’re going into business together here soon, as soon as Ilarion gets all of that boring paperwork drawn up. And-”

For a moment he’d thought Varya hadn’t come. Once Ilarion moved out of the way to shake hands with another man, however, he saw her. She’d gone to fetch herself a glass of champagne from the bar, but now lingered outside of the circle of men chatting, patient - as if she were used to waiting.

Roman couldn’t stop the wicked smile that split his face when he noticed she was wearing the dress he’d gotten her - one of his many courting gifts - and that it fit her _exactly_ like he expected it to (which was, to say, _very tightly_ ). He couldn’t wait to see her in his bed, smelling like him, existing in _his_ space - no more hazy labyrinth of the Astakhov manor.

Their eyes met, and lingered longer than needed. “...And his lovely sister, Varya,” Roman finished. He reached out and took her hand to bring her into the fold, almost parading her. And why shouldn’t he? He loved to show off his things. “Kitten, this is Alfonzo Bianchi, and his brothers Nicolo, Paolo...” 

Ilarion’s eyes flashed at the pet name, but Roman carried on as if there was nothing wrong. There were quite a number of ‘associates’ gathered that night. He intended to give none of them anything, and only to flaunt that _he_ would be the one landing a contract for the Astakhov guns, not one of them.

After the introductions had finished and the conversation instead turned towards actual business, Roman leaned down and pressed a kiss to Varya’s hair, leaving his hand on her back; a mark of possession in case Ilarion or any other idiot in this building thought that she belonged to anyone else. “You like the gift, then?” He spoke just low enough that only someone beside them would hear that he was speaking, not what he was saying. His fingers trailed along the sapphire velvet covering her lower back. “It looks even better on you than I imagined.”

“I love it, Roman. But - you are driving him mad, you know,” Varya teased. Her words should have sounded scolding, but there was no hint of it in her voice, and he saw the glimmer in her eyes. “He can’t stand that you are behaving yourself.” She traced the rim of her glass with a fingertip. “Acting like a true gentleman.”

“Oh, on the contrary,” Roman rumbled, “I have every intention of misbehaving as soon as I get you alone. Just _look_ at you.”

She laughed delightedly, pressed into his side and drinking in the affection. He could tell she loved it, and that Ilarion did not. The brunette’s gaze was fixed on them as sharp as daggers. But Roman’s mood had been only high since he’d seen every step of his plan work out the way that he wanted it. Varya would be his, Ilarion could say nothing of it, and all of these dumb fucks that came in to play alpha dog would miss out on the biggest weapons deal Gotham had ever seen.

“How is your father, Miss Astakhova?” Alfonzo asked. He was apparently unable to read a mood: which was, of course, that Varya and Roman were having a moment. All the same, she shot him a flattering smile, and Roman was reminded that this outing was as much business for her as it was for her brother.

“He’s very well, Mr. Bianchi,” she replied sweetly. Roman noticed that she didn’t correct how he addressed her. “He wishes he could be here, of course, but…”

“Yes, well, I’m sure that he does.” Alfonzo was making a pointed look at Roman, one which he did not like - it was similar to the kind that Ilarion liked to shoot him. The difference was that, for the long-game, he would tolerate it from Ilarion. But _this_ man, this next-to-nothing? To insinuate that the patriarch of the Astakhov clan would find Roman as anything less than charming, gregarious, a _perfect fit_ for his daughter was practically criminal.

Roman’s eyes narrowed. He waited, quite graciously he thought, for Alfonzo to follow up with a clarification that would not make him the center of his rage. When he didn’t, Roman prompted: “What do you mean, Alfonzo?”

“Roman.” Varya’s voice was cautioning, her hand resting on his chest; she was a physical barrier between himself and Alfonzo. _Not for long,_ Roman thought, knowing very well he could easily hoist her out of the way. Not that it would matter. Zsasz would take care of him anyway.

“I’d be _very_ interested to know what the fuck Mr. Bianchi is trying to insinuate,” he insisted. The volume and sharpness of his words stilled the conversation around them. The men that had gathered around watched, Ilarion included, until the Astakhov twin set his glass down and stepped across the circle.

“Do you have something to share with the class, Bianchi?” Ilarion asked. It was the closest thing to a joke Ilarion had ever said, probably, but Roman could not enjoy it even a little bit; all he kept thinking about was that look Alfonzo had given him, and how easy it would be to have Zsasz pop his eyeballs out.

Apparently emboldened, either by alcohol or his own poor ego, Alfonzo replied with a half-assed grin, “I’m just saying that I had no idea the old man was open to other avenues of bargaining.” He shot a glance over at Varya, still lingering close to Roman’s side, and he shrugged. “If I had known all it was going to take to get a contract is fucking your sister, I would have gladly paid that price.” A bit of laughter rippled around the circle, as uneasy as it was. The only person that seemed to be enjoying the joke was Alfonzo himself, who chuckled and took a swig of his beer. 

Roman reached a hand up and motioned Zsasz over with a flick of his fingers. It did not matter whether Varya wanted the punishment to be issued or not--he wouldn’t stand to have someone speaking about her in his club, not like that, and he had counted on Alfonzo making a fool out of himself. What better way to prove his loyalty than killing a gangster who’d had the balls to speak out of turn, anyway?

But Varya wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. She grabbed the front of Ilarion’s shirt sharply. “Ilya.” There was an urgency in her voice. “Ilya, do not.”

Ilarion was, by no means, a hulk of a man. He was tall, but lean. When Roman looked at Ilarion Astakhov, he saw the same kind of raging hunger that he had harnessed in Victor Zsasz; the inherent need to sow as much damage as possible, no matter the consequences. Whether that was in there all along, or if this insult inspired it, Roman could not figure out.

“Ilarion. It is not worth the effort. Please, we can still enjoy the evening.”

He seemed to be considering taking Varya’s advice, but then Alfonzo said in a mocking voice, _“‘Ilya, don’t,’”_ and a switch flipped. Ilarion shoved Varya’s hand off of his chest and grabbed a fistful of Bianchi’s hair, slamming the side of his face into one of the club’s columns. The beer bottle had tumbled out of his hand and broken on the floor, so that when Ilarion really leaned into him, his feet crunched glass underneath. Blood was dripping out of Alfonzo Bianchi’s mouth already. When the initial surprise at the sudden violence had waned - quite quickly - Roman thought: that’s going to be a bitch to get out of the carpet.

All of Bianchi’s men started to move, but Roman held up his hand again, a silent order. I don’t think so, it said, without needing to try too hard. He was interested to see how this would play out. Zsasz had gotten through the crowd, having been dealing with a drunken fight by the bar, and when he broke through to plant himself between Bianchi’s men and Roman it seemed to dawn on him what was really happening - that Roman was not in any danger at all, but rather enjoying a bit of a show.

Ilarion turned Bianchi around, pinning him against the column by his throat, and slipped a knife out of his pocket. Roman recognized it as the knife he had sent as a gift. It shone, brand-new and unused, and was decorated with a coiling dragon. Ilarion flicked it open and balanced the tip of the blade on Bianchi’s chest just above his heart. The blade wobbled, only a little, until he put enough pressure on it to stabilize the movements. Under the force of his hand, Alfonzo was turning an ugly reddish-purple, the color of a raised scar.

The brunette’s voice was eerily calm when he said, “Do you want to know what the cost of a contract is, Bianchi?”

“Ilarion, stop it,” Varya insisted. There was now a different kind of sound to her voice, one that Roman recognized as _fear,_ and it sent a thrill through him. When she stepped forward to interrupt, Roman caught her around the waist. She was as light as a feather, and whipped around to glare at him. 

He could have pretended that it wasn’t because he loved to see chaos sown--and played out--right in front of him, but he didn’t.

Alfonzo had weakly managed to shake his head. Ilarion scoffed. “What, now you aren’t interested? Don’t you think I’m as pretty as Varya?”

Again, Alfonzo started to shake his head. He coughed, the sound mangled by Ilarion’s grip on his trachea, but it was unclear how he was actually answering the question. Roman could feel Varya’s heart beating against her rib cage like a trapped bird. He held her against his chest and murmured, “You have to let him solve this himself, pet.”

“He will murder him,” she hissed back at him urgently, but it meant nothing; that was exactly what Roman hoped for. She turned back around, pleading with her brother. “Ilarion, you are _killing him_ -”

“ _Graznaya svenya,_ ” he spat, his voice full of disgust. He remained completely oblivious to his sister. “If I catch you mentioning my family - my father, my sister, my second cousin - I will cut your heart out with a dinner knife and serve it to your wife and your pretty daughters. Understood?”

Bianchi nodded, gasping as much as the grip on his throat would allow. Ilarion closed the knife again and set it back in his pocket before grabbing Alfonzo’s chin and forcing him to look at Varya and Roman. Ilarion pressed his cheek against Alfonzo’s, so now _he_ was looking at them, too; his gaze was dark and unreadable, fixed on Varya and Roman.

“Do you know, Bianchi, that every breath you take from now on is a gift from my sister, just because she asked me not to kill you?” He asked. He shoved Bianchi down onto his knees. “Be a good man and thank her.”

Varya shook her head. Roman could tell that she didn’t want that, but here it was anyway: the bloody offering her brother was giving her. 

Ilarion nudged the pitiful man with his foot. Alfonzo swallowed thickly, spitting blood out onto the floor. He bit out the words, his eyes filled with hatred and humiliation: “Thank you.”

“ _Maladets, nu tye otstoy._ ”

Ilarion released his grip on him, brushing off the front of his shirt, like he’d just been touching something dirty. He picked up his glass from where he had set it down to take a drink of the amber liquid lingering at the bottom. The entire club had stopped to watch what was going on, and in the ensuing silence, a pin could’ve been heard dropping.

Roman let go of Varya to give a few claps of applause. “It’s not really a party without a little drama, is it, folks?” he called out, grinning as though nothing were wrong--and to him, nothing was. Uneasy laughter once again made the Black Mask Club its resting place, but in a different way now. The music turned back up, and the crowd tentatively began to disperse back to their own areas. Victor made his way over to Roman immediately. “Get Bianchi and his dogs out of here,” Roman muttered, and with a swift nod Victor went about cleaning up the mess. He seemed, at least a little bit, disappointed that he hadn’t been there in time to help the way he was best known for.

Ilarion shared a few words with Zsasz before he made his way over to where Roman and Varya stood. His face was as statuesque as always, immovable; no trace of the earlier violence that had made a home in him.

“Come on, Varya. We will go home now.”

“We will not go anywhere,” Varya snapped back. This time, Roman made no attempt to stop her from moving. “You made a fool out of me, Ilarion.”

His brows furrowed. He said, “What? That man disrespected you. I got him to apologize.”

It dawned on Roman - and perhaps Varya too, if it hadn’t before already - that this was, truly, the sort of problem-solving that occurred to Ilarion as acceptable. At the very least, it was the most _effective_. It was a shame that Ilarion was so dead set on hating him, or he would have made a great asset. 

“You threatened his wife and children to get it.” Her voice was brimming with anger. She seemed right on the cusp of something that Roman hadn’t seen out of her yet, like one tiny little push would get her somewhere. “You should leave.”

“Varya-”

He reached for her arm, but she smacked his hand away, and said, seething, _“Don’t touch me.”_

Ilarion seemed to sense the difference, too. He lowered his hand and watched her for a moment - but before he could say anything, she stormed past him, effectively ending the conversation. He turned his hard gaze onto Roman himself.

“Roman.” His voice was terse. Ilarion didn’t need to finish his thought; Roman could sense it already. _I will kill you if something happens to her._

Lifting his hand like he was making a Boy Scout promise, Roman said solemnly, “There’s no safer in place in Gotham City.”

He scoffed, but short of causing a scene with Varya, there was nothing he could do. Roman knew this, and had counted on it. Just from their little conversation they’d had before, he knew that Ilarion would have never taken an insult lightly, even a minor one, and Alfonzo Bianchi was the biggest fucking pig there was. Of course, he had _planned_ on showing Ilarion that no one would be allowed to talk about her like that - that he was a real, true-blue, Stand Up Jimmy. 

But Ilarion had dug himself a deep enough grave as it was, and Roman hadn’t even had to do anything. It couldn’t have gone any better. Now, as Ilarion brushed past him to leave, he thought: _checkmate, you fuck. You put up a good fight, though._

He found Varya at the bar. He took his time making his way to her, savored the sight of her in the dress he’d picked himself, leaned against his bar, and finished off the glass of champagne she had ordered before setting it on the bartop. He slid his hand along her hip and sidled up to her, planting a kiss on the curve of her neck.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he murmured. “Come here often?”

It might have been too soon. In hindsight, Roman could see that. But could anyone really blame him if, in the moment, all he could think about was getting time with his girl?

Varya turned around in the circle of his arms. She didn’t move immediately, but when he leaned down to kiss her, she tilted her head so that she was just out of his reach; their lips lingered close, but not close _enough,_ not as close as he _wanted_ to be. 

“Did you have fun watching your show?” The tone of her voice only _lightly_ veiled the threat underneath. Roman might have found it agitating that she had the audacity to speak to him like that, were he not finding it delightful that he was getting under her skin.

And he was, he could tell. He cocked his head to the side, searching her gaze, and leaned in to steal another kiss; again, she evaded him, reaching up and taking his face in her hand. He could feel the crescent shape of her manicured nails against his jaw. The bite of them sent a strange thrill through his stomach, hot and quick. He grinned.

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, kitten.”

“You must think I am stupid, Roman. I saw your face when my brother smashed that man’s face in. You loved him doing your work for you.” She watched him expectantly, her whiskey eyes narrowed into gemlike slits. Their noses brushed; almost romantic, almost intimate, so close to a kiss. “What game are you playing?”

Roman felt the heat coiling in the pit of his stomach. He loved seeing her like this - off of her game, flustered, no longer composed. He took her hand from his jaw and kissed the pulsepoint on her wrist, watching to see the way her eyelashes fluttered when he did so.

“No game,” he purred. There was not a single flip of his gut at the blatant lie. “I just like a little theatrics. Besides, Alfonzo is a pig. It did him some good to get his ego battered and bruised, and your brother is _very_ accomplished at that.”

Varya searched his gaze, and he wasn’t sure if she found what she was looking for - if she knew that he was lying - but after a moment she seemed either satisfied with his answer or unwilling to keep digging. Maybe she didn’t want to know. Roman reached up and pressed the pad of his thumb into her lower lip and watched her gaze darken; he let his hand drag down the slender column of her throat, admiring the exposure of skin not drenched in velvet.

“Roman.” She sighed his name and it was almost exasperated. Her voice was sweeter now, though; the heat of her words before had dissipated under his touch, tamed by him.

“You look so fucking delicious,” Roman murmured. He dipped his head, feeling her breath catch and her pulse flutter under his mouth. “I should just take you upstairs right now and have my way with you.”

“You’ve certainly been taking your time.”

He laughed, pulling back to look at her. The lightness had returned to her expression, but there was something else there now; he had seen it before, that afternoon in the ballroom. _Desire._ Pearly teeth worked at her lower lip for a moment, and he thought about kissing her, long and hot and hard, the way he wanted to always. 

“You’re spoiled, Varya Astakhova.” Roman pulled away from her, but his hand caught hers, pulling her with him. “You won’t get what you want from me so easily.”


	6. say so

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman finally gets what he wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt the need to put my author's notes at the beginning of this chapter because: this chapter contains some sexual content, a little of some kinkiness (like, a real daddy kink, what can I say ok), and a lot of dirty talking. No full-on smut yet, or anything, but. This is the closest thing to publishing smut I have probably put out, and while I have every intention of making sure there's some REAL GOOD CRUNCHY steaminess in this fic, we're not quite all the way there yet. Side note: my playlist for this fic is now up to 56 songs. That's 3 hours and 18 mins of music for these dummies.
> 
> I also wanted to say that I really appreciate everyone who reads and comments and kudos-es, it means so so much to me. ♡ ♡ I very likely would have stopped putting this up on a public place if I didn't get the feedback I have been. A special thank you to sithmarauder and GRIMM_Noir for always leaving the loveliest comments and cheering me on. ;o; If you have the time to read my fic, you should go check out their stuff; they're both exceptionally lovely writers!
> 
> Long-winded notes done; I hope y'all enjoy this filthy chapter. ♡♡

Roman was strongly of the opinion that things could not have gone any better.

With the chaos of his own design behind them, Roman spent the rest of the evening enjoying (and flaunting) Varya to the esteemed guests that frequented the Black Mask Club without needing an invite. He loved to show her off: not only because the victory over Ilarion was still so _fresh,_ but because she was awfully charming. He could understand why Ilarion did not bother hiding her. She quite easily put people at ease, catching them off-guard with her warmth, which made them all the more susceptible to Roman's own brand of _persuasion._ Recruitment, enchantment, no assembly required.

She seemed determined to put the evening (and by proxy, Ilarion) behind her. She drank, and kissed him, and drank and kissed him some more; there was no hesitation or teasing now, only the warmth of her hand smoothing over his chest absently while he chatted with an associate, or the weight of her body tucked against his side, or the ringing of her laughter in his ear. It felt as though it should have _always_ been this way between them, so easily did she assimilate into a regular evening with him.

Roman could tell that Varya was listening to every word exchanged between himself and his associates. The more he watched her, the more he realized how much of her charm was purposeful, like instinct; it could have been a well-timed smile, or the way she gazed at someone through her lashes, or how she laughed delightedly when a joke wasn't actually very funny.

It was later on in the evening when they had settled into Roman's private booth with one of his regular associates, Dorian. He worked for the paper, and frequently omitted incriminating information from his articles when there was a pretty penny in it for him. Leaned back against the smooth fabric of the booth, he said, "You've got yourself some lovely arm candy there, Miss Astakhova."

Varya could not have looked more pleased at the comment. Dorian and Varya seemed to get along quite well; the conversation flowed so easily between them that for a little while, Roman could just sit back and survey what was going on in the club.

"What a refreshing thing to hear," she laughed, reaching up and cradling Roman's jaw. He couldn't help but gaze at her; her fingers lingered where just hours ago they had stung, biting. "Did you know you were my arm candy, Romy?"

She had to be at least three glasses of (quickly ingested) champagne deep to be using that pet name so freely, in front of company. He could tell, because not only had he watched her drink more than she ever had in his presence before, but because there was a deep, dusky flush rising in her cheeks. Roman grinned. "I wouldn't mind you doing a bit of the heavy lifting," he teased. _It's not like you don't already do it for Ilarion._ He turned his head to kiss her fingers. "Dorian has an eye for these things, you know. Maybe I should retire to being a trophy wife."

Varya scoffed. When Roman gave her an inquisitive look, clearly not seeing the issue in his statement, she rolled her eyes and then narrowed them at him playfully. She said, "You would never cut it as a trophy wife."

Roman feigned deep insult. "Explain yourself."

"Too mouthy."

Dorian could not stifle his laughter, though he did try, for what it was worth. He slid out of the booth to track down another beverage - on the house, of course - and Roman turned his gaze back to the brunette in his arms and cocked an eyebrow upward. She flashed him a smile.

"Too mouthy, hm?" he prompted. His hand skimmed down along the curve of her hip. With just a little pressure, he had guided her onto his lap: as she straddled him in the late-evening light of the club, dim and murky except for a few sharp cuts of light across the dancefloor, all he could breathe and taste and see was _her._ A few wisps of her dark hair tickled his cheek.

"It suits you," she answered. He felt her fingers tangling into his hair at the back, and her mouth on his jaw, planting open-mouthed kisses there. A wave of heat washed over him when he felt her breath on his skin, and when he tried to inhale he felt a catch in his throat.

His hand wound up the back curve of her thigh, sliding beneath the hem of her dress; his fingers drew lazy circles on her bare skin he found there. "It sounds like you don't enjoy it," he rumbled playfully.

"It is one of my favorite things about you, Roman." She spoke against his ear, soft and sweet. He struggled to keep his bearings; between the alcohol in his system, and the feel of her in his lap, and her perfume and her voice and her _tongue_ \- "In fact, if you wanted to use your mouth more..."

Roman settled against the back of the booth so that he could look at her and give himself some air. Not a single thought regarding the rest of the evening crossed his mind; not the other club patrons, not Ilarion, not the unpleasantness from earlier. It evaporated in the wake of his desire. Varya hooked a finger in his shirt, undoing a button with ease and running her hand over the exposed skin.

"Dirty girl," he purred. A wicked smirk charmed her lips, and he saw her gaze travel down the length of him, before returning to meet his own.

"Do you really think so?" She was preening, goading him now, he could tell; the way she fixed on him expectantly said all it needed to. He twisted his fingers into the fabric of her dress and felt it strain under the pressure. _So easy,_ he thought absently. _I could just rip in half, right off of her._ Varya brushed their noses together and he felt her breath hitch against his mouth.

Roman said, low and heated, "Absolutely _filthy._ "

His grip on her tightened and she moaned softly into his mouth, so deliciously that he had to kiss her; each kiss only made him feel more starved, like he wouldn't be able to drink his fill of her, his hands roaming her body in the dark of the club. He thought of kissing her in the Astakhov ballroom; the smell of roses swarming him, the way her lips parted so prettily for him, the way she had taunted him. _Only looking, no touching._ This was better.

"Roman." Varya's voice was soft, but heated. He almost couldn't hear her over the noise of the club, and it was awfully distracting how her fingers trailed lower on his chest. He thought almost for certain he could detect an added edge in her voice when she continued, "Are you going to tease me forever?"

He groaned, catching her hand. "I'm trying to, but you _are_ making it difficult on me."

"Then give in."

She said it so simply, so matter-of-fact, that Roman almost caught himself agreeing - it felt harmless when she said it that way. _Just give me what I want,_ is what it really was, when this whole time was supposed to be about Roman getting what _he_ wanted - and sure, those things could be the same, and probably were, but the terms on which they were achieved were -

"Don't overthink it," Varya teased, sliding off of his lap. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, smoothing her hands over her dress and flashing him a darling smile. "If you have to work so hard to not give in, maybe that's a sign you just _should._ "

"Isn't that convenient for you? I do have guests I have to attend to, you know."

Guests like Dorian, who hadn't bothered coming back to the booth - he'd probably tried, caught them in the middle of their moment, and had the good taste to fuck off for a minute. She laughed and came to a stand. Roman was keen to follow, drawn to her as if pulled by an invisible string, and before she could get too far he caught her around her waist and turned her around to him.

"One more round," Varya murmured, "and then?"

"I'm _all_ yours."

There was a quick look that flashed over Varya's face. Roman almost missed it, but caught it just before she shook it off; it was something akin to _arrogance._ Just a glimpse. _God,_ he was so fucking close to figuring her out. Each glimpse into who she was made him want her more for himself. The cold cruelty in her voice when she ordered Abarca's hand cut off; the smug satisfaction when he told her would be hers for the rest of the evening, like she thought that she already had him.

"Fine. I'll wait for you, then," she acquiesced. She curled a finger in his unbuttoned shirt, much like before, but with more leverage now to pull him down and kiss him. Instinctively, his hands went to grip her waist; he felt her teeth nick his lower lip, sharp and stinging, and he almost didn't catch the noise of surprise before it came out of him. She murmured, sweetly, "Try not to keep me waiting."

Varya was off of him just like that, grinning at him over her shoulder as she made her way to the bar. As he watched her go, Roman reached up and touched his lip; wet with blood, prickles of pain swept through it, and the metallic flavor flooded his mouth.

Every time he thought he knew her next move, she did something like that. That nasty little voice picked its head up again: _You can't trust her, Roman. How could you, when all she does is play games with you?_ He shook his head and tried to stifle his paranoia. The sting of her teeth and the way she'd spoken, so assured of herself, knotted in his stomach - and he couldn't tell if it felt good or not.

The night was almost closing in on the witching hour by the time he had gone about and touched base with everyone that he wanted to. One asked about his lip, and when he'd responded heatedly, "What the fuck do you care?", none of them had asked anymore. He wasn't sure why his gut reaction was to be angry; perhaps because thinking about it made something well up inside of him, hot and a little ashamed that he'd enjoyed the pain she'd inflicted on him.

When he made his way over to the bar to find Varya, she was visiting with Zsasz. It was a little odd, to see them getting along, to watch her laughing at whatever he was saying to her, responding earnestly. He knew Zsasz - _really_ knew him - and he knew that he was not generally considered to be particularly charismatic. A strange kind of collision of his worlds.

As he approached, Victor grinned at him. He seemed quite relaxed. "The night's winding down, eh boss?" he asked, but then his eyes squinted. Roman knew what his next sentence was going to be. "What happened to your fuckin' lip?"

Roman felt a wash of that same unsettled feeling. "Nothing," he defended, and he could feel more than see the look on Varya's face. Satisfaction, he was sure. He wanted to be gone already, so he could stop thinking about Victor Zsasz trying to get a better look at his lip. Turning to Varya, he held out his hand expectantly and said, "Ready to be done for the evening, doll?"

"Hardly," Varya teased, but she took his hand and slid off of the bar stool. "Goodnight, Mr. Zsasz."

"Night," he said, and then dipped his head in Roman's direction. The club would be closing soon, if no more fights broke out. "Night, boss."

Roman nodded, a bit distracted. The hazy feeling of his buzz swept over him stronger than before. He pressed a hand into the smile of Varya's back to guide her to the door which led to the loft apartment above the club that Roman called his home; as soon as the elevator doors had opened and they stepped through, he snagged her wrist in his grip.

"You think you're very clever, don't you?" he asked, his voice low. Varya's hot-whiskey gaze traveled over his face for a moment, stopping on his lips, where undoubtedly her mark remained.

She _should_ have been afraid of the tone of his voice, but it only seemed to spur her on. With all of the innocence she could muster (which was not very much) she said, "I do think I'm very clever, yes."

"You're proving to be quite a troublemaker," Roman growled, the elevator lurching under their feet. Varya sidled up closer to him. She had always done this to him - when he loomed over her, she drank it in, loving the attention when other people would have been cowed by it.

"It was just a little love-bite, Romy." Her voice was glossy. And then, almost pouting: "Didn't you enjoy it?"

 _Yes,_ he thought, almost bitterly. _Maybe too much._ Instead, he said, "I didn't take you for the possessive type, kitten."

She laughed, and his grip on her wrist loosened. She slid her hands down the front of his chest. "Maybe you should get to know me better."

"I'm planning on it."

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, alerting them of their arrival. The bass from the club below still thumped under their feet. When he moved to step out of the elevator, Varya caught him and kissed him; he had the feeling it wasn't meant to be more than just a quick kiss, but it never seemed like that was _quite_ enough with her.

Her fingers gripped the lapel of his suit jacket. She sighed into the kiss, and it sounded suspiciously like his name. Before Roman could stop himself, he was kissing her back harder, pressing her against the wall of the elevator. Her body arched impatiently against his, and she made the sweetest noise against his lips, and--

\--and he really _did_ consider it, fucking her right there in the elevator ( _his_ elevator, as if it made any difference), but he had to remind himself that this wasn't how he wanted this. Not right now, anyway.

The doors to the elevator began to slide shut. Roman only barely managed to notice it, throwing a hand out to stop them, and pulling himself away from her.

"Vixen," he hissed. But he was pleased by her audacity, and it showed.

She laughed, working her lower lip between her pearly teeth for a moment before she pushed off of the elevator wall and walked out into the loft. When he stepped out after her, he caught her around the waist and lifted her into his arms, carrying her into the bedroom and setting her - with as much grace as he could muster after several drinks - on the edge of the bed. He took a step back to survey his handiwork.

There she was. Just like he'd pictured her - although maybe he'd thought of her in red rather than blue, _can't be too picky about that kind of thing_ \- tousled, lips kiss-reddened and her cheeks flushed with desire. The dress he'd picked out for her had sleeves that slid off of her shoulders, so that the expanse of skin that was revealed to him in that moment beckoned for him to mark it, the same way she had done to him.

Roman felt her hands roaming, and then the sensation of cool air hitting his skin when she got one more button of his shirt undone. He stilled her hands and watched her with a darkening gaze. Slowly and purposefully, he kissed her fingers and said, "You know better than to try and play the game before the rules are laid out."

Varya's gaze flashed at his words, and then prowled where her hands could not. Brushing some hair from her face, she settled more comfortably on the bed. She looked to be considering him. At last, she said: "Then tell me the rules."

Roman smoothed a hand through his hair and took a sip of his drink. As delicious as she looked - and she did look delicious, thoroughly reprimanded and waiting for him on his bed, _at last_ \- he needed to remember that he was meant to savor this moment, not rush through it, as much as he wanted to.

"Did you forget them already? Only looking, and no touching," he replied, reiterating the very words that had set him off the last time they had been this close. Varya's lips pressed into a little line; it was very obviously not what she had planned on. He was counting on that.

With an easy smirk, Roman leaned down just low enough to murmur into her ear, "Take off your clothes."

He heard her sharp exhale, a result of what he could only imagine was anticipation. He straightened up and shrugged out of his jacket to drape it across the back of a chair facing the bed. With all of the time in the world on his side, he slid his gloves off and tossed them aside. Varya's voice was light but prying when at last she said, "I thought you didn't want to play by my rules," like maybe she might convince him to abandon this game all-together.

Roman felt the excitement spike in the hollow of his chest. He busied his hands with making himself a gin and tonic at the bar cart - because if he didn't, his hands would certainly find a way to keep themselves busy. "That's right: I don't." He sat down in the chair, settling into it. From here he could see her in all of her entirety; swathes of dark hair washing down her back, her cheeks flushed with want, a frustrated shift of her seat. He took a sip of his drink, feeling the alcoholic burn all the way down his throat; he'd made it much too strong for how drunk he already was, but that wouldn't matter anyway. He said, "But they're not _your_ rules anymore, kitten. Now-" A dark brow arched upward, and he swept his gaze over her, drinking her in. Mine. "Be a good girl for daddy and strip."

He felt a hot thrill of excitement when her eyes darkened, her lips parted in a delicate expression of mild surprise; like she had expected that it out of him, but not right then. His words excited even himself, delighted to see the effect they had on her. 

She stood, slipping out of her shoes, and then made her way over to him. He thought for a moment, when she leaned down, that she was going to kiss him; he opened his mouth to remind her of _the rules_ , but she instead snagged the glass out of his hand and took a drink.

"Of course, Roman. You're the boss," she murmured headily. He felt his jaw tighten and set at her words. She knew he wanted his ego stroked, and she was trying to play him. Setting the glass back in his hand and straightening up to turn away from him; her fingers found the zipper quite easily, the back being so low-cut, and slowly pulled it down. Just peeking up from where the zipper ended, he could see black silk.

His hands instinctively clenched. Roman thought he was showing an exemplary amount of control; he itched to grab a hold of the dress, to rip it off of her. It was the sweetest kind of torture to watch each inch of her skin become exposed until the dress lay pooled at her feet on the floor. Her hair swept down to the small of her back, and he could see just the _thinnest_ scrap of silk underwear still clinging to her body.

"You know," Varya began almost conversationally, and Roman's eyes snapped to her face, "I thought you were going to have your way with me in the ballroom." She skimmed her hands along her body, turning to face him now; she'd worn no bra under the dress, and her underwear cut above her hips. He didn't know if he would ever get tired of looking at her, even like this, when the only person allowed to touch her was herself.

"I would have." When he lifted his hand and beckoned her with a crook of his fingers, she obliged; but she took her time, making sure to use the most amount of time to explore her own body while she made her way over to him. As if to add to the torture, she took an outrageous amount of time getting settled on his lap, he thought, with a lot of shifting back and forth. Roman's mouth twitched. "But I didn't like the terms."

"Well, you should never settle on terms," she agreed, quite somberly. God, he wanted to just fucking grab her and take her to the bed; she was ghosting her breath on his skin, murmuring into his ear. Wasn't he supposed to be in charge here?

"So I've been told."

She sighed longingly against his skin. _So close,_ but somehow still not close enough. "Roman," she murmured, as sweet as could be, "Did you think about me when we were apart?"

 _Yes,_ he wanted to say, but he wouldn't. He wouldn't tell her how much he thought about how she would taste, or how she would feel against him, or what it would be like to roll over in bed in the morning and kiss down her body; to know what it was like to have her belong to him.

"I thought about you," Varya continued in the same soft, exhilarating tone. He groaned when he felt his control slipping. Heat was pooling in his stomach, coiling and pulling taut, ready to spring; she was practically _moaning_ into his ear, and the only thing separating them was his own clothing and one tiny piece of fabric still on her body. "About the way you kissed me, and your hands on me - what it would be like to have your mouth _everywhere_ -"

"You can have that." Roman managed to keep his voice calm, turning his head so that he could meet her gaze. The curtain of her hair felt like it separated him from the outside world; it was hard to breathe, every inhale he took filling his lungs with the smell of her. "All you have to do is ask."

Varya straightened up in his lap. Her fingers ghosted over his chest, not quite touching but not quite playing by the rules, either. She bit her lip.

"Please, Roman," she murmured, and he felt that breathless anticipation again. That little box ticked itself somewhere in his mind; _mine, all mine, I've finally got you._ Needy, wanting, all for him; she was his loveliest conquest yet.

"Oh, kitten," he sighed. He scooped her into his arms, carrying her to the bed and laying her down. Against the dark silk, she looked like a painting. He felt the crooked smile creeping onto his lips as he began unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way, and he said, "That was _so_ lovely, but I think you can ask a little nicer than that. You're good with your words; use your imagination."

It felt so fucking good to be in control again. All this time, she had made him feel like he had one foot hanging off the edge, waiting for a misstep to plummet him down. But not anymore. The desire heightened in her eyes, and he liked the indignation he saw there, too, that he would have dared to ask her to beg _again, more_.

Still, Varya watched him undress hungrily. She said, "Someone is feeling greedy."

Roman knelt down at the foot of the bed and slid his arms around her thighs, yanking her forward. He pressed a trail of slow, open-mouthed kisses to the soft skin on the inside of her thigh. The movement was so abrupt that she let out a little noise, squirming under the heated path his mouth made, and he could see that he caught her off-guard. He loved having her _vulnerable._

"Exceptionally greedy," he agreed, watching her from between her legs. The heat had spiked in her cheeks, a lovely high color; she was so _fucking perfect_ it made his chest ache. "And I think I've been quite patient with you, Varya Astakhova. So-"

He let his breath fan across her skin, planting a kiss just where her underwear cut up, rumbling pleasantly. His fingers dug into her skin a little. He heard the little whimper that she bit back. _So defiant, still,_ he thought absently, sucking a dark mark into her dusky skin and feeling her shiver.

Varya's voice was tight, a rubber band ready to snap. "Roman-"

Roman's gaze flickered up to hers again, pausing in his movements. He said expectantly, _innocently,_ "Yes, darling?"

Varya made an intoxicating noise of frustration. She reached forward and cradled his face in her hands pulling him up between her legs to kiss him.

"Please, Roman," she moaned, "I need you -"

He gripped her hips, prowling over the top of her to press her into the bed, seeking out every inch of exposed skin on her neck that he could find. "That's right," he growled, hiking her leg up and around his hip, "just like that, baby. You are - so _fucking_ heavenly like this."

A breathless sound of want and desire escaped her. Roman could tell that if she had wanted to stop it, it would have been pointless. Wanton and lush, her hips arched up against his, and he laughed breathlessly into her skin.

The brunette's teeth grazed a sensitive spot, just below his ear. "Make me yours," she sighed dreamily. The words shot a wave of heat through his body, a frenzied echo in his brain; _mine mine mine._

"Oh, fuck," Roman groaned. It was almost too much to stand, having her squirming like that against him when there was still a full layer of clothing between them. He was now regretting not having stripped sooner. Varya's hands sought out his shirt, pulling the buttons apart so that she could push it off of his shoulders, kissing him over and over again. His lip had a bruising ache under her kiss where she'd bitten him just an hour ago.

And she was _relentless._ "I want you to, so badly-"

"Yeah?" he asked, breathless now from her kiss and her fingers, making quick work of his clothes. "You want to belong to Roman Sionis, kitten?"

 _Say it._ The words were on the tip of his tongue, and they tasted sweet, but he wanted to hear it from her, just one more time.

(And another, and another, and-)

"Yes." Her voice was sweet and light, but doused with desire, as she tossed his belt to the side. "Yes, Roman, I want you so _fucking badly_ to make me yours."

The vulgarity of her language spiked something dark in him. He wondered, somewhere in the back of his mind, if this felt as much to her like a deal with the devil as it did to him.

Roman snagged Varya's chin in his hand so he could tilt her face up to look at him. Her lashes fluttered, and he slid his hand along the slope of her jaw, admiring the curve. A wicked grin swept across his face.

"Well, all you had to do was ask."


	7. start//end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ilarion builds a bridge, and Roman considers (very strongly) burning it down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that Roman and Varya almost certainly should not be together, by normal standards, but by monster standards they are perfectly suited to each other.
> 
> Here's another long chapter because I have no self-control! This chapter contains heavy language, some pretty clear emotional manipulation, and you know - I feel like I say this a lot, but warnings for Roman being himself.
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who read/commented/left kudos; it means so so much to me! ♡

Late morning sun had finally begun to creep through the shades of Roman Sionis’ room. It wasn’t often that Roman woke from the sun rather than than his own internal clock, but the weight of last night’s drinking was sitting heavy on him still. He sat up groggily, feeling around for his robe.

His bed was empty, too. Last night’s activities suddenly came rushing back; Varya’s mouth on his, her nails digging into his back, the feeling of his fingers knotted into her thick mass of hair all hit him in an intoxicating rush. But where was she now? He could see his clothes still on the floor, but her shoes and dress weren’t among the pile.

 _Left,_ that unwelcome voice chimed in. Roman stood and tried to quell the paranoia sitting in his chest. _She got what she wanted from you and left. You should have known better - how many times do you have to learn this lesson, Roman?_

Unable to find his robe, Roman quickly and without much thought pulled on enough clothing to walk out into the loft. He felt the irritation rising up in him, a tidal wave cocking back and preparing to crash on the shore of whatever poor town had decided to settle on its coast.

“Zsasz,” he barked as he walked out, _fuck fuck fuck, she fucking left,_ “I need at least five-”

Roman stopped short when he heard the sound of conversation coming out of the room. He hesitated just a moment before he rounded the corner to find Zsasz and Varya sitting at the dining table, chatting. She was draped in his robe, cradling a mug of coffee between her hands, her knees tucked up to her chest and laughing at something Zsasz had said.

“Mornin’, boss.” Victor greeted him first. Roman was working quite hard to reel in all of his rage, which had just moments ago been coursing through his body; he smoothed a hand through his hair and cleared his throat.

“Zsasz,” he replied, very cool and not at all flustered. He turned his gaze to Varya as he made his way over to the chair she had made herself comfy in. “You’re up early, doll.”

Varya seemed to glow under his attention, smiling at him sweetly and reaching up to cradle his face when he leaned down, without a thought, to kiss her. “Hello, lover,” she murmured, and she was so warm and soft that he almost forgot about the sting of her nails in his skin or the hot-iron strike of anger at the thought of her leaving before he had woken. She continued, “Not _so_ early. Mr. Zsasz was awake before me. Coffee?”

“Please.” He cleared his throat again, watching her slip out of the chair and disappear into the kitchen. Roman sat himself down in his own chair, lips pressing into a thin line.

So she hadn’t left. But she hadn’t stayed in bed, either, and Roman realized that he didn’t know enough about her to know if this was par for the course or not. She’d drank more than he had last night. Why hadn’t she stayed in bed?

 _You sound like a fucking child,_ he scolded himself, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something about it. Zsasz was looking at him curiously over his breakfast, as if he could hear the cogs in Roman’s brain catching and grinding against each other.

“You were calling for me earlier,” Zsasz said. “When you were coming out of the room. Boss?”

“Hm? Oh.” Roman blinked through his tired, still hung-over haze of a thought. He’d certainly _had_ a need for Zsasz, when he thought that he needed to hunt Varya down for leaving before he woke. But now? “Were you up already, when she came out this morning?” he asked, lowering his voice so that only Zsasz could hear him. He could hear Varya humming in the kitchen. Zsasz studied him for a moment, like he was really trying to figure out Roman’s train of thought. All the better to give him the answer he was looking for, after all.

“Uh, yeah, I mean - there wasn’t anyone else out here when I got up,” he said, mimicking Roman’s low tone. “She came out like - I dunno, an hour ago?”

Roman made a non-committal noise. He didn’t know why he couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling he got knowing that Varya had been awake before him, in his home. Wasn’t she supposed to put him at ease?

Deep down, he knew it was because even when he felt like he had control, it was fleeting. The game of cat and mouse between them had become a strange kind of power struggle; he had felt it last night, too, a back-and-forth before an eventual surrender on both ends to get what they wanted.

When Varya came back into the room and set a cup of coffee down in front of Roman, he tried to wipe that uneasiness from his face and brought her head down for another kiss. In her presence again, it was hard to think about all of the unknowns swirling around her that left him off-balance. “Very nice robe you have there, Miss Astakhova,” Roman said, his eyes narrowing playfully. She had settled back in the chair she had occupied before; at his words, she flashed him a smile, tossing some hair over her shoulder.

“What, this old thing?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him innocently, and then glanced back down at her phone. “I just grabbed something and put it on.”

He couldn’t deny that he liked the look of his clothes on her. Taking a sip of the coffee and gritting his teeth against the steaming liquid - he had never been able to wait until it cooled off - he said, “Are you an early riser, Varya?” Very cool, very casual, not at all suspicious.

“Hm?” She seemed distracted, Roman thought. “Not really, though it does depend. Sometimes I think I do not sleep well in someone else’s home. It’s harder to keep track of…”

As her voice trailed off, it seemed in that moment that she had given more information than she would have liked. It was like breaker flipped; so engrossed had she been in whatever she was reading that she hadn’t realized what she was saying.

Roman felt a sharp little prick in his chest, like a needle. He wondered if she had been casing the loft to take something with her on her way out. It was the first time that he really sensed that she had slipped up. _Don’t let this pass, Roman, really sink your teeth in._ He prompted, “To keep track of…?”

Varya seemed to be carefully considering her next words. She had set her phone down on the table, her gaze flickering between Zsasz and Roman before fixing on him. “It is - for example, if I am unfamiliar with a place, then I cannot keep track of where things are supposed to be. Or where they were, originally, in the case of someone -”

Roman kept waiting expectantly for her to get to the point; but Zsasz seemed to get it first, finishing for her as she clearly struggled to find a way to say it: “So you know if someone has been here or not.”

Relief swept over her expression. She nodded. “Yes. You see, everything in my home - it’s exactly where I want it, where I put it, and I remember where everything goes. So if someone were to break into my home, and move something, or steal something, or would have gone through my things…”

It dawned on Roman then: she didn’t want to case his loft to steal something, but rather to make sure no one had been there while she slept. It was the kind of paranoia that only a life of crime could give you, and he thought that with a father like Nikita Astakhov, being aware if someone had been in your space was crucial to survival. And she was ashamed of it.

Likely unhelpful to that paranoia were the rumors that her father was an exceptionally suspicious, paranoid man anyway - but that was beside the point.

Roman clicked his tongue, reaching over and bringing Varya’s fingers to his lips. “You don’t need to worry about that here, kitten,” he assured her, picking up his newspaper. With the same amount of blistering confidence he had given Ilarion the night before, he added, “This is the safest place in Gotham for you.”

Varya’s lashes fluttered at his kiss, at his words, and a little laugh came out of her. “Oh, Romy,” she sighed. It felt like there was something else she wanted to say, there was so much longing in her voice; but she just gave his hand a squeeze where it held hers and settled back in her chair and left him to wonder.

Before it got too late into the morning, she announced that it was time for her departure, claiming she didn’t want to overstay her welcome. She had certainly made up her mind about it, too, because no amount of Roman’s assurances that she wasn’t overstaying (quite the contrary; he would have liked her to stay endlessly) swayed her.

As he walked her to the elevator door, now re-dressed in her clothes from the night before, he skimmed his hands over the slope of her hips and planted a kiss on her neck. “Come back tonight,” Roman murmured against her skin, pulling her back against his chest. “Tell me you will.”

“You would see me again so soon?” Varya asked, looking at him over her shoulder before pressing the button to open the elevator door. The doors dinged, and then slid open, but she didn’t move immediately; rather, she lingered in his arms, soaking up his attention.

Roman made a thoughtful noise. “I’d keep you here with me if I thought your brother wouldn’t come and burn the building down with both of us inside it.”

Varya laughed. She turned in his arms and reached up, her fingers skimming along the back of his neck. “He wouldn’t do that,” she defended, “he would at least make sure to get me out of the building first.”

“Oh, _what_ a relief.”

She grinned and kissed him, short and sweet; when she went to pull away, he pulled her into another, and then another, until the elevator doors tired of waiting for them and he could kiss her against the cool metal of them instead. She still smelled like him; it was intoxicating.

“Ilarion will be fetching the gas canisters any minute now,” Varya teased breathlessly into his kiss. The thought, even if it were more than a jest, barely registered for Roman. He kissed down the pillar of her throat and then back up to the curve of her jaw, and caught a spot of skin between his teeth and sucked. _Hard._

The noise of surprise that came out of Varya’s mouth was almost enough to get him started. She inhaled sharply, swatting his chest. He couldn’t have hid his grin, even if he wanted to. 

“And you’re calling _me_ possessive?” She touched her jaw where Roman had left his mark; it might have ended up being shadowed a bit by her jawline, but in a few hours the mark would bloom and darken beautifully. He thumbed her jawbone and admired his work.

“It’s just a little _love-bite,_ kitten. Besides, it’s a good look on you,” he rumbled admiringly. He would have gladly seen her covered in similar marks; while Roman _did_ have good fun igniting Ilarion’s ire, he didn’t particularly want to deal with the mess that would come if he covered her neck in bite marks and it brought about the need to end Ilarion’s interference, once and for all. Surely, she would have never forgiven him for killing her twin, no matter how necessary it might be.

If Varya was trying to hide her pleasure, it didn’t work (although he wasn’t convinced she was trying very hard at all). The little glimmer in her eyes told him everything he needed to know about how she felt about him marking her as his own. She rested a hand on his chest, and used the other to open the elevator doors.

“You didn’t answer me, earlier,” Roman reminded her as she stepped back into the elevator. 

She laughed, hitting the button to take her down to the first floor. As the elevator doors began to close, she replied, “Roman, when have I ever been able to _really_ tell you no?”

He supposed that was true.

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

Their days continued like that, until it became routine, second nature to them; Varya would stay for the night, and for some time in the morning, and then she’d depart back to her home and to where Ilarion was waiting for her. Sometimes they would make love, or Roman would explain different pieces in his collection to her, or they would lay in bed, drinking and talking. It was near to perfect -- if not for the fact that she would always leave. Eventually.

Each time the conversation turned to Varya’s family, if it did (and it always did, _eventually;_ they were to be business partners, after all), she seemed to disconnect. Once, when she lay naked and tangled in his silk sheets, it had come up that Victor thought he’d heard somewhere, from someone, that her father was dead. She sat up in bed, gathering the sheets at her chest and looking at him.

“Who said that?” she asked, her eyes narrowing. Roman propped himself up on his elbows and watched her, intrigued by her reaction.

“I don’t know. Some fuck off that he drinks with, probably.” He paused. “Rumors like that are a part of everything, you know, especially when - well, your father doesn’t exactly make his presence _accessible._ ”

Varya scoffed. It seemed some of her strange anxieties were quelled by his words. “There is no point in talking about my father. Ilya and I are the ones that handle the work in Gotham for him. What does it matter?”

“I’d like to know who I’m doing business with, pet,” Roman replied, running his hand along the curve of her bare hip. She leaned over, brushing their noses together affectionately, and kissed him, long and hard.

“You know me,” she purred into his kiss. “We are well-acquainted, one could say.” Her hand skimmed down his chest, taking her time. Roman groaned and pulled her onto him. He was unable to resist her.

“Perhaps you could acquaint us more _thoroughly_.”

Varya did, with all of the feverish desire that she ever did, but as she slept next to him that night he couldn’t help but feel like she had tried to distract him from the conversation at hand - and succeeded.

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

Before she would leave him each morning, Roman made sure to touch up any of his handiwork from the night before. It could be a bruising love-bite on her jaw, or her neck, or the crook between her neck met her shoulder - places that were easily shrouded by her hair, but would certainly not be missed by the scrutinizing gaze of her brother. What was he going to do about it, anyway?

“Ilya wants to go out with you,” Varya said very casually over breakfast one morning, several weeks into their tryst.

 _Oh,_ he thought, _that’s what he’ll do._

Roman set his coffee cup down on the table, letting the paper he was reading in his other hand lower down to the table as well. Varya wasn’t looking at him; instead, she stirred her own coffee and scrolled through something on her phone. At the other end of the table, Victor - ever dutiful - blurted out, “What? Why?”

“Hm?” The brunette brought the spoon from her coffee to her mouth, sucking the remaining dredges off. “Well, Mr. Zsasz, I am sure it is because Roman has been sending me home with hickeys, and also that he has likely finished drawing up the contract.”

“For the guns,” Roman prompted, for added clarification. He wouldn’t have put it past Ilarion to draw up a contract for something stupid and inane, like ‘interacting with Varya’. Not that it would have meant anything, anyway; Varya had made it very clear she would do whatever she pleased, with whomever she pleased, and Roman wouldn’t have ever agreed to something so ridiculous anyway.

Varya set her phone down on the table and got up to fetch the coffee pot. “Yes,” she replied pleasantly, “for the guns.”

Roman could not stop the barb in his voice when he said, “It’s certainly taken him long enough.”

She seemed unbothered by his comment. She topped his coffee cup off, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Well, it _is_ a three million dollar gun-running contract, my darling. Guns have to be secured, not to mention the ammo re-packed in less-conspicuous crates, and then the shipping...” 

He tried not to be too swayed by her sweetness, but it was almost certainly a losing game. And Roman didn’t particularly care about the details of the guns getting to him; he just cared that they _did,_ and that he wasn’t going to get fucked by Ilarion over it.

“Yes, alright. When, then?”

Varya sat down after she’d poured herself more coffee as well. “Tonight.”

Roman had just been lifting his coffee cup to take a drink when she spoke, and he immediately set it back down again, abruptly, his jaw clenching.

“Mr. Zsasz, he’d like you to come, as well.”

“What - fuck, Varya, can’t you give me a _bit_ more notice?” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. She pouted at him from across the table. Ilarion asking for this at the very last minute was clearly a power play of some kind - to keep him unprepared, off of his game. Unless Varya had chosen not to warn him; unless they were working together to keep him in the dark -

Varya’s brows furrowed at him from across the table. “What do you need to _prepare_ for? It’s just business, and whatever isn’t business - well, there is not really a way to prepare for that part of it, anyway.”

Roman did not want to let her know that he thought she was right. So instead, with a measured amount of tone that could not hide his suspicion of her involvement, he said, “When did Ilarion tell you he wanted to meet?” 

It was Varya’s turn to put her coffee cup down on the table. It was followed by her phone, and then her spoon in the cup. The expression on her face was one of very controlled irritation. Roman knew his girl; in the short time he’d spent with her, he had done a lot of it memorizing the little ways that her expressions gave her away. She was so tightly in control _almost_ all of the time that he desperately did not want to miss the times that he got under her skin, so that he could remember it.

“Just this morning, Roman,” she answered, after what seemed to be a long consideration, like she really had to _chew_ on her words.

“It took you a bit to come up with your answer, didn’t it?” _You’d better not be lying to me,_ he thought; and even though he mostly didn’t think that she was, he couldn’t stop that feeling that Varya and Ilarion shared a bond that would forever be unknowable to him - blood. The vicious thoughts ran circles around each other. As an errant, spiteful afterthought, he continued, “I’ve never known your brother to make plans so impulsively.”

Varya came to a stand, quite abruptly, and leaned her hands on the table. “I would argue, _lover,_ ” she said in her sweetest voice, “that you have never known Ilarion at _all._ ”

Roman’s teeth clicked together, audibly. He didn't want to know Ilarion; he didn't give a fuck about him, beyond the only thing that he was good for - being a vessel for things that Roman wanted. The insinuation that she expected him to make efforts to get along with her brother when Ilarion so clearly did not like him settled under his skin like an infection.

It was the most infuriating thing, to know that the thing he loved the most about her was also the most frustrating: _her mouth_.

He said, his voice low and terse, “I would be very careful about how you choose to proceed with your words, _kitten._ ”

The pettiness of throwing the pet name back at her was not lost on Varya. He saw it in her face; the way that she sucked her teeth, and then opened her mouth to say something to him. _Go on,_ Roman thought, _say it, whatever it is._

“ _Vso, ostanavis,_ ” she snapped at last. She turned and waved her hand dismissively, effectively exiting the conversation. The anger that washed over Roman was almost instant; he had heard her say that enough in her phone calls with Ilarion to know what that meant, at a basic level - _I’m tired of this conversation._ He stood abruptly from his seat and nearly knocked his coffee over in the process. When he did, Victor stood too, immediately ready for damage control.

“Fucking - God _damn_ it, Varya, come back here!” He shoved his chair out of the way and stalked after her into the bedroom. He was vaguely aware of Zsasz’s footsteps behind him, but all he could think about, truly, was the maddening way that she thought she could just walk away from him.

Roman caught her wrist before she could get all the way to the en suite bathroom and pulled her around. It was something he had done several times to her before - but playfully, never like this. “We’re not done with-”

The brunette yanked her wrist from his hand with sudden and surprising force. The softer lines of her face had hardened, now cold and sharp. “Telling _me_ to watch my words,” she snapped. “Would you prefer me some mindless whore to do your bidding?”

Roman took in a deep breath; if he didn’t, he might forget to breathe. When he did, he thought, _no, I would hate you like that,_ so he replied angrily, “I - no, Varya, of course I don’t want you to be that kind of-”

“But here you are, grabbing me like you’re going to throw me around,” she seethed. “Do you think I would be tossed so easily, Roman? Go ahead, then. Do it, if you want to so badly. Why not do it?”

Roman’s head was pounding. The shadow of his meeting with Ilarion was drenching him, and now this - but with her vicious goading, he was reminded of the conversation he’d overheard with Ilarion, that afternoon with Abarca screaming in the background. He remembered the edge of fear and the threat in her voice when she’d said, _Let go of me, Ilya._

It presented him with a unique opportunity. Roman did not like to think of all of his relationships as transactions, trade-offs between a lesser and greater evil -- but he did recognize, even in his anger, when he was put in the position to make himself better than the most important man in Varya’s life, perhaps second only to her father.

So he didn’t do as she goaded him to. He exhaled, sharp and hard, and then took her face and kissed her.

He did not try to think too much about the way her body tensed for fight or flight, as though she had been prepared to brace herself if he decided to strike her - as though she had expected it. Her hands had gone up and gripped his wrists instinctively; it was at least a full heartbeat before she was kissing him back. When at last the kiss broke for a breath, he could see that the cruel spot of her expression had softened.

Against her lips, he spoke low; how he would have coaxed a cornered animal. “I would never, Varya.”

Varya was still in his hands for a moment, taking in a breath and exhaling it. There in the pit of his stomach, the rage still burned. That she’d had the audacity to walk away from him would not be so easily let go of; he could see, though, that the moment had stuck to her, and that was what mattered the most to him.

Hopefully, she would remember this the next time her brother grabbed her.

“I know,” Varya said after a moment, and he wondered if she really believed it. The tail end of that sentence lingered, unspoken: _I know you aren’t like him,_ Roman thought it said, but he couldn’t have been sure.

“Tell me: what time am I meeting Ilarion?”

The prompting question seemed to break her out of her thoughts. Her lashes fluttered absently. And then: “Seven.”

Roman nodded. Fine; seven, then, and he would go and play nice with her brother. And once he had the guns, then he could be done with it - Ilarion could be out of their life, and there would no longer be a reason to compete with anyone for Varya’s attention.

“Victor.” Roman dropped his hands from Varya’s face, turning to the doorway. Zsasz had been waiting there, as expected, ready to calm him down if necessary. “Get me a reservation at, uh -” He snapped his fingers. “You know, the-”

“The Greek place.”

“Yes.” Roman clapped his hands together. “And the best bottle of vodka you can find, in time for Ilarion’s arrival. We want to really celebrate this contract, don’t we?”

Just as Zsasz was going to open his mouth to assure the speedy delivery of all that Roman had asked for, Varya said, “Not vodka.”

Roman paused, and turned to look at her. Whatever strange stillness had lingered in her body before was gone, or at least fading; if she _was_ afraid of him, or angry with him, he wouldn’t have been able to tell; it was washed away with her composure. With all of that unpleasantness firmly behind them, Roman prompted in a voice that implied nothing had happened, “Not vodka?”

“It’s my father’s choice of drink, not Ilya’s. My brother prefers whiskey,” she clarified. She turned her gaze on him, steady. “And you want to make a good impression, don’t you?”

A quick grin spread across Roman’s face. _This_ was how he knew that he had made the right decision.

“Clever girl,” he laughed, “you know me all too well.”


	8. civil war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ilarion finally drafts up a contract, after taking a thousand years to do so: or, in which Ilarion Astakhov finally gets a moment in the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiii guys! I don't know why it took me 1,000 moons to get this chapter up, as it's been done for at least a few days. I just get really daunted editing things for AO3 because I want them to be perfect ;;
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it! I'll hopefully have the next chapter up here in a few days - things have been going slower because work has been so crazy. Thank you again to everyone who has been leaving feedback; it makes my heart so so happy!

Ilarion arrived promptly at 6:30, which Roman was counting on. The Astakhov twin had always struck Roman as the "early is on time" type - annoying, surely, but predictable.

Predictable meant that Roman could ensure that Varya was in the shower with him when her brother arrived. It didn't take much coaxing or sweet talking to convince her to join him; she seemed just as eager as he was to leave their little argument behind them. Whatever had lingered between them before was gone. At least, for now.

It was hard to stay angry at her, anyway, when she was sighing his name.

"Noisy," Roman panted against her neck. He had her pressed up against the marble wall of the shower, his hands roaming freely, enjoying the way her nails dug into his shoulder. "Your brother is going to hear if you keep that up."

The brunette barely managed to bite back a sweet noise. The hot water of the shower stung where her nails had gone too deep. Hungrily, she kissed him, letting the gesture smother her voice; when she broke the kiss, she was breathless. The knowledge that the en-suite bathroom shared a wall with the loft's main room hung over them, a pleasant haze.

"Be good to him, darling," she murmured dreamily, twisting her fingers into his hair until he felt a sharp, tantalizing prickle of pain along his scalp. "He _is_ my brother-"

"Oh?" Roman gripped her hip and caught the skin on her neck with his teeth. " _How_ good do you want me to be to him?"

" _Roman_ -"

Oh, but she was so saccharine like this; squirming under his agonizingly slow movements, panting his name, flushed from the heat of their shower and her wants. Roman ran his hand along the curve of her hip and laughed breathlessly against her skin.

"Should I be this good to him?" he purred. She buried her face into his neck to stifle her moan when his mouth found a particularly sensitive spot on her neck. "Should I be as _good_ to him as I am to you?"

"If you'd like-" He heard her voice catch deliciously when she spoke. And then, as she kissed him she gripped his shoulder sharply, leaving spikes of hot pleasure to race down his spine: "But you should know that I don't share well."

Roman grinned wickedly at her. "Let's keep it that way."

It was probably closer to 7:15 by the time that Roman actually made his way out into the loft where Ilarion and Zsasz had been waiting. It was just a tiny little win, coming late to greet a guest in his own home because he was too caught up enjoying the spoils of victory, but he had to take those moments where he could get them.

"Ilarion!" he greeted warmly, in particularly good spirits. He smoothed a hand through his hair, double checking himself in the dark reflection of the glass before turning his gaze to Ilarion. The brunette cut quite a figure, which he had been blessed to not have to deal with for quite a number of weeks. In a loosely-buttoned collared shirt set under a dark navy suit, with the small gold chain around his neck that undoubtedly everyone Russian mobster had ever worn ( _so very typical_ ), Roman thought that Ilarion might have even looked happy to be there.

And then Ilarion's gaze swept over Roman, as if perhaps he might find traces of his sister still there, and without searching too hard Roman could see the disdain in his gaze.

"Hello, Roman," he replied coolly. It always struck him off-guard how much thicker his accent was than Varya's - it made him wonder, very briefly, if she did that on purpose. "You are late."

"Yes, well, I wanted to make sure I looked my best for our little date tonight," Roman answered charmingly. "Victor, where is the bottle?"

Zsasz's gaze lit up in understanding, and he headed off into the kitchen to retrieve the (very expensive) bottle of whiskey that he picked up, per Varya's advice. When he returned with it, Roman said, "A gift - to celebrate the... _Long-awaited_ sealing of this contract."

Ilarion took the bottle, inspecting the bottle for a moment. He made a noise, perhaps the closest thing to approval he had ever made in regards to Roman. "It is good whiskey."

 _God, you fucking neanderthal,_ Roman thought bitterly, _just give me something to work with._ "Varya told me it was your favorite," he supplied casually. "Was she wrong?"

"No," Ilarion muttered, sticking a hand in his pocket. He worked a toothpick between his teeth; Roman thought he could hear it splintering. "Are you ready to go?"

Varya's sweet, lilting voice cut through their tension, calling out from the bedroom door, "Before you say goodbye to me?" She was still yet to be dressed, her wet hair thrown back into a loose braid and a robe cinched around her waist (her own, for what it was worth - Roman thought perhaps she did not want to add insult to Ilarion's injury by wearing _his_ robe out).

"You're not dressed," Roman remarked, surprised. "And your hair is still soaking wet. Hurry up, doll, we can't leave your brother waiting all-"

"Not her," Ilarion interrupted. His voice was sharp, perhaps because of the pet name, perhaps because he just had no control over himself, and he added, "Just us."

"Oh," Roman said, blinking. A little pinprick of suspicion rose in his chest. Why wasn't she coming? Didn't the twins always conduct business together? He had just assumed Varya would come; Ilarion had, apparently, a different plan. Did that mean Ilarion was trying to get him alone? And to what end? He cleared his throat. "Well, I had intended for Zsasz to-"

"He can come," Ilarion said with a shrug. He seemed to relax a little more. "I do not care."

So no Varya, but Zsasz could come. He wasn't planning on killing him, then. So what was it?

Varya smiled, cupping Ilarion's face and kissing both of his cheeks. "Play nice, you two," she ordered. As she faced Roman, Ilarion turned on his heel and headed for the elevator - avoiding playing audience to any displays of affection, surely.

She smoothed her hands over his shoulders and reached up on her tip-toes to kiss his cheek, just by his ear. She added, in a murmur, "You _especially_ , Mr. Sionis."

"Scout's promise," he replied, cradling her jaw with one hand before he kissed her, _just a little one, for the road_. What he didn't say was that he could only promise to behave as much as his counterpart. Now, without Varya there to buffer them, he wasn't absolutely convinced that either of them would make it through the meeting completely unscathed.

"I will hold you to that." Varya's voice was sweet, but firm, and she patted his cheek softly. When Roman headed towards the elevator, she took Zsasz's face in her hands now and planted a kiss on each of his cheeks, too. "Mr. Zsasz, please make sure he behaves."

"I always do," he replied with a toothy grin. Varya's eyes narrowed playfully.

"That is what I am afraid of."

" _Vso._ Are we going to sit around kissing each other all night?" Ilarion called from the hallway. He stopped to toss his toothpick into the garbage, oddly polite. "Or are we going to sign off on some fucking guns?"

"Hush, you beast," Varya snipped back. She seemed to have some nervous energy about her, like she _wanted_ to go with them but she wouldn't, for whatever reason. It only served to unsettle Roman more, the sensation that something beyond his control was looming over him sitting in the hollow of his chest. As he went to follow in Ilarion's footsteps, he heard her call after them, "Go, and have fun. Please."

Over his shoulder, he replied, "Of course, darling."

"But not too much fun-"

"We swear," Roman promised, climbing into the elevator next to Ilya. He watched Varya's silhouette in his loft get snipped out of existence as the doors slid shut, and then it was just Ilarion Astakhov, Victor Zsasz, and himself.

It felt, a little, like letting the shark into the diving cage.

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

With his paramour's twin sitting across from him, drinking the whiskey that he had gifted the man, Roman could almost feel normal. Ilarion seemed to have lightened up since they left the loft; even more so, making attempts at jokes, which Roman was suspicious of but not ungrateful for.

They drank in the noise and smoke of the club, owned by one of Roman's associates, which was perhaps the only thing that Ilarion seemed truly mugged off about; the purpose of getting Roman out with him was to be on neutral ground, surely, but there was no neutral ground in Gotham, not when it came to the territory that Roman Sionis controlled. The sooner Ilarion figured that out, the better.

It felt, often, strange and different when he was outside of Varya's presence - like in another world, where she didn't exist, perhaps he and Ilarion could have been on good terms. _Friends_ , even.

Of course, the moment would be short-lived. No matter how many rounds of shots or sips of whiskey Ilarion had, the evening would have always, eventually, turned to the great, wide tension yawning between them.

"You are having fun, then?" Ilarion asked over the din of the music. Their booth was a little shrouded from the common rabble; Zsasz stood watch outside of it with the Astakhov man, Alexei, and one of those tiny, fake candles glittered in the center table. It cast an eerie glow over Ilarion's face.

Roman smiled, feeling - as he often did with Ilarion - like the cat that caught the canary. "What, just - in general? Well, I've been busy, but-"

"Fucking my sister," Ilarion interrupted, taking a lazy drag of his cigarette. It crackled a little when he lit it, and smelled like clove. "Let us not play with each other, Roman. My sister may enjoy those games, but I do not."

Roman's eyes narrowed. _Ah, that's right. I forget he doesn't have as much tact as her._ He gave a little laugh and shrugged, attempting to keep it light. "You wouldn't catch me complaining about it."

Ilarion offered him a small, thin smile. With the cigarette in his mouth, he rolled up his sleeves. Whatever friendliness had sprouted between them suddenly didn't feel so friendly anymore. "Tell me, Roman Sionis," he began, enunciating each syllable of Roman's name while he set his hands, palms down, on the tabletop, "what does a man of your..."

_My what, you fucker? Just say it._

Ilarion looked to be considering his words, like he was going to try and be tactful or polite about what he said next; instead, he said, "... your age want with my sister?"

Roman's eyes followed every one of his movements. He supposed that it wouldn't be completely beyond Ilarion to bring a knife with him, or a gun; some way to effectively attempt dismemberment. _I'd be disappointed if he didn't,_ he thought absently.

"You said so yourself," he replied evenly, "I am having a lot of fun fucking her."

The murderous look that flashed over Ilarion's face was almost enough to make him reconsider his words. But he was feeling quite invincible; the man wouldn't have called him out just to threaten him, and the contract was just as beneficial for the Astakhovs as it was for Roman (almost). If they weren't going to sell to Roman, they'd have been blacklisted.

And that look of murder did only last for a minute, really, before it was gone. Just a little murder wasn't so bad.

The brunette sucked his teeth and leaned back against the booth. He said something in Russian to Alexei, who reached in; Roman tensed, waiting for it to be a gun, or something with which to gut him, but it was a thin stack of papers. Ilarion dropped it onto the table and took another long drag of his cigarette. He flipped through the papers for only a moment before he gave a little sigh.

"You are making it very hard for me to play nice, Roman. It is a shame; I think I could have liked you, otherwise," he said with a little chuckle, which sounded foreign and strange coming out of his mouth. He stopped flipping about a third of a way through the stack, folding the papers back and sliding a pen towards Roman. Before he could say anything, Ilarion continued, "You will sign here for the guns."

Roman stared at the paper. It was littered with legalese, shit he could care less about - as long as it worked in his favor. He glanced back at Ilarion suspiciously.

"I sign this, and I get the guns?" he reiterated. Ilarion nodded, scratching his jaw.

"Yes. It will take a week or so to get them here. Government officials are surprisingly picky when it comes to how many guns are coming into their countries," the Russian explained. "And three million dollars is getting you a lot of guns."

"I'd think so." Roman glanced over the page again, just to see if anything stuck out to him. The papers stood as thick as a book. "What is the rest of this?"

Ilarion shrugged. He pointed at the top page. "I am not responsible for what you do with these guns," he explained. "This one is saying the same thing, but in third person. The lawyers are fond of third person. This one says you are not allowed to use the guns against the Astakhov family, or their associates, and so on, and so forth."

Roman's couldn't stop himself: "What a shame."

He was certain he saw a tiny, _tiny_ quirk of Ilarion's lips. Almost a smile; who would have thought. "Payment is to be remitted, in full, prior to delivery of merchandise," Ilarion finished.

Roman flipped through the papers, feeling satisfied. It was, as they went, a run-of-the-mill gun-running contract. There didn't seem to be anything that said, 'you can't ever have ever had sex with any of the members of the Astakhov family, or else'.

"And it's exclusive," Roman added, uncapping the pen.

Ilarion gave him a smile that barely veiled his smug amusement. "Why would it be exclusive?" he replied, innocently.

There it was; the reason he hadn't wanted Varya along. She would have surely never agreed to such a fucked deal - not _his_ Varya. Ilarion must have really been holding on to that one.

Roman stared at him. "When we first met, it was to discuss an _exclusive_ contract."

"What, so we sell three million dollars worth of guns once and then never again in Gotham?"

Roman's lips pressed into a thin line, working hard to keep his temper. "Well, no. But you _only_ sell guns to me, for as long as it takes to get to the black end of the world, and fuck everyone else," he said. "That was the deal. Remember? Nobody else gets anything from you. What's the _point_ of all of this if you're going to just sell to whatever schmuck walks off the fucking street?"

"Is that all it is?" Ilarion clicked his tongue, as if he were speaking to a child. The black bile of anger started to rise in Roman's throat. "You want something no one else gets? Well, then you've already gotten the deal of the century, Roman Sionis."

He stood and, taking Roman's face with both of his hands, planted a kiss right on his mouth. It carried with it all of the desexing of a kiss from the Pope, and Roman felt the anger spike violently in him, his vision blurring.

"You are the only person who gets to fuck Varya Astakhova," Ilarion whispered, an inch from his face. "That is as exclusive as it gets."

Roman's teeth clenched. He chewed the words as they came out: "You don't want to start this with me, Astakhov."

Ilarion laughed. It was probably the first time Roman had heard a genuine sound come out of his mouth, nothing like that sour little chuckle from before. He straightened up, releasing Roman's face and making his way out of the booth.

"I think you will find, my friend," Ilarion continued casually, crushing his cigarette in the ashtray, "that I do not start things - but I certainly will finish them."

He gestured for Alexei that they were leaving, giving Roman a scathing once-over as he loomed in the entrance of the booth. "I will wait to hear back from you about the contract. It seems like perhaps you could benefit from giving it a second thought. If anything comes to you, we may consider changes. _Poka_."

 _Reconsider what you're doing with Varya_ , is what that said. Roman's jaw ached from how tightly his teeth were gritted. The very casual way he said goodbye - which Roman recognized from Varya's affectionate goodbyes to _him_ \- only furthered the insult. Ilarion was speaking to him like he would a friend. _The arrogant fucker_.

Ilarion spoke to Alexei in Russian again, gesturing for him to go on, and then clapped Victor's shoulder. "Have a good evening, Mr. Zsasz. I enjoyed our visit earlier," he said, loud enough for Roman to hear, and then he left. To Victor's credit, he didn't respond, but only nodded, having been privy to the heated exchange.

Roman sat there for a moment, staring at the paperwork in front of him - it no longer looked like a contract, but one big, giant _fuck you_. A punishment for pursuing Varya. And what the fuck was Ilarion doing sniffing around Zsasz, anyway?

"Let's go," Roman barked, shouldering his way out of the booth. He stormed down the stairs to the main floor of the club, pushing through the crowd with Zsasz hot on his heels, until he made it outside.

He would have just had Ilarion killed, if he thought that would make it easier. But it wouldn't. It would only serve to complicate things. He wanted Varya and the guns. He _deserved_ both things - they both _should_ belong to him. The least Ilarion Astakhov could do after this giant headache was fuck off.

This was fine. Ilarion could play his little game, or whatever he thought was getting at, and Roman would let him think he had really gotten one over him. _That was fine._ He would still get everything that he wanted.

One way or another.


	9. monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang gets unexpected visitors; Roman and Ilarion continue their pissing contest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a hot min since I was functioning enough to actually write something worthwhile. Hopefully this chapter will make up for it! Thank you again (always) to the incredibly lovely sithmaurauder who has, on more than one occasion, suffered through my nonsensical 1AM ramblings about these dumb idiots even though she doesn't know anything about the BoP fandom. She also consistently edits my dumb shit and turns it into the polish you see now. ♡
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! I had a real good time writing it and and even BETTER time writing the next one, so I hope it shows!! ♡♡ Oh, and if you're wondering what song is playing in this next scene to really immerse yourself - it's the Swan Lake, Op. 20, the waltz.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter include: blood, swearing, implied attempted sexual assault. A lot of blood. Did I mention there's like, a lot of blood?

Evening had settled, harsh and cold, by the time they got back to the club. Zsasz didn’t say much; he probably felt guilty, Roman supposed, for having enjoyed any of his conversation with Ilarion prior to their departure. 

Throughout the drive home, Roman’s gaze flickered over to the stack of papers that sat in the empty seat next to him. He tried not to think about how many hours they had wasted in that club; hours that could have been spent doing something else, something more valuable.

Now, as they parked and climbed out of the car, Roman found he didn’t have the stomach to walk through the club - if he did go, he would inevitably be stopped. Everyone _needed_ him there. What _he_ needed were answers from Varya--assurances that this dumpster fire of a contract wasn’t really what her brother was bringing to the table, that this was either an elaborate prank or a promise that she’d had no knowledge of in the first place.

“He’s a fucking nutjob if he thinks this is how things are going to go,” Roman hissed to no one in particular, but mostly to Zsasz. “I’ll fucking show him. I’ll fuck his sister, I’ll take his guns, and I’ll light his dumbfuck contract on fire while I do it.”

Zsasz nodded in absolute agreement, opening his mouth to say something and then - at Roman’s murderous glance - thinking better of it.

With the blonde trailing after him, Roman turned the corner to take the alley entrance into his loft, yanking his keys out of his pocket and jamming them into the door. The force of his gesture threw the door open and slammed it into the wall. Roman stared at his hand for a moment; it took a heartbeat for him to realize that the door had been feather-light.

Because it had already been open.

Suddenly, all thoughts of the contract flew out of his mind. He glanced down the alleyway and then into the stairwell; it was mostly dark, dimly lit by a few wall lights. From above, he could hear music. It was one of the classical pieces that Varya liked to leave playing while she busied herself. The rumble of brass echoed eerily down the hall.

“This was open,” he said to Zsasz, trying to piece together why the entrance to his private apartment had been unsecured. Zsasz’s gaze narrowed. He stepped forward, scooting around Roman to make his way into the stairwell. A quick inspection to confirm that it was empty had him beckoning Roman inside, and as Zsasz headed up the stairs, Roman closed and tried to lock the door behind him.

It clicked hollowly. When he took the pressure of his hand off of it, the door slowly swung open again, just a hair. _Broken._

“Boss,” Zsasz called down the staircase. “This one, too.”

Roman jogged lightly up the stairs and saw what Zsasz was referring to. The door leading straight into the loft was also ajar, this time much more, the singing strings playing over the apartment’s speakers blaring out into the hallway. The trill of flutes rang in his skull, cacophonous.

“What in fuck’s name,” he muttered.

“Wait here,” Zsasz said, pushing the door open enough to look into the hallway. Roman did as Zsasz bid; these were the moments where he knew to trust his man without question. Like before, Zsasz beckoned him once it seemed to be clear. 

The hallway looked immaculate. As they wandered through to the main room, Roman felt unsettled by how untouched everything was - like no one had existed here at all. The direct dichotomy of the threat of a door ajar and the apartment, perfectly intact, loomed over him.

“Varya?” he called, but he felt the sound of his voice drown out in the crashing cymbals of the music playing over the stereo. It was starting to make his head pound. “God, fuck - Zsasz, can you turn that shit off?”

Zsasz nodded, moving quickly to find the remote for the stereo control. The more he looked, the more he felt like something was wrong. She wouldn’t have left the apartment like this, doors ajar and music blaring. She wouldn’t have left _him_ like this. Right?

_Unless she and Ilarion planned it._

The music crescendoed, sending his heart racing as its jubilant notes bounced in his skull. “Zsasz!” he shouted, tossing the contracts onto the couch. “How long does it take you to find a fucking-”

The door to his bedroom was wide open. As the sound of the violins wound up, higher and higher, building towards a frantic and heart-racing climax, Roman saw Varya, standing at the foot of his bed, covered in blood. Her hand loosely held a kitchen knife, and at her feet lay two bodies. He felt his stomach drop.

“Varya,” Roman said again, but his voice came out less forceful, and the words were certainly washed away by the thundering of the orchestra playing around them. It felt as though he were talking to her under water. He watched her hand tighten its grip on the knife.

The song drifted off to its rousing end, the bright cheeriness of the waltz a vicious dichotomy to the grisly scene laid out before him. Roman remained rooted to the spot. Varya’s dark gaze, unreadable and unfamiliar, was fixed on him. No flicker of recognition registered on her face.

He sensed Zsasz’s presence behind him, carefully slipping around his shoulder. Zsasz’s gaze met his for just a moment: it was a wordless direction, one that his man was good at conveying. _Stay. I’ll do this._

The blonde turned to Varya. Her eyes darted to him, narrowing. Roman could see her fingers tighten and tense their grip on the handle of the knife.

“Hey, chickie,” Victor said, beginning to make his way to her, nice and slow, “put the knife down, will ya?”

It was as though Roman didn’t even exist. That draw that he usually felt to her, that immovable pull that he thought was between them always - her hard, cold eyes had severed it, cut them away from each other. She was far from him, now.

“Why?” Varya’s voice was violent with accusation, and wracked with a kind of grieving. For what, Roman couldn’t have said; the stinging way she spoke made him think she suspected foul play from _them_ , as though they weren't on the same side. He supposed that, growing up with a mobster for a father, this was not an uncommon paranoia. 

He followed slowly in Zsasz’s footsteps, watching the man approach her with his hands up, how one would a skittish horse - except the risk of being kicked was now the risk of being stabbed. Roman saw the crumpled body at her feet curl up like an insect and then cough; the sound was wet and clotted. Blood splattered onto the carpet. Varya’s dark, wild gaze fixed on him suddenly, like a predator catching sight of moving prey. _That man will die before we get to him,_ he thought.

“C’mere,” Zsasz replied, skating over her question skillfully, his voice low and smooth. He held his arms out for her. “We’ll figure this out.”

Closer now than he was before, Roman could see a split in her lip over Zsasz’s shoulder, and the collar of her shirt was torn open. The hand that was not clutching the knife had begun bruising around the knuckles. Her hands and shirt were wet with blood - and, from the looks of her, not her own. The copper smell of it filled him up, sickening and hot.

There was a heartbeat. Varya had turned her gaze back to him. Little wisps of her hair stuck to her cheeks, and a feverish flush was in her cheeks. Something washed over her - recognition, perhaps, or reality returning to her - and it softened her expression a little. She looked almost confused.

Zsasaz was close now, about a foot and a half away from her. She looked to try and steel herself. “He tried to kill me,” she said. The accusation had returned. Her voice broke, angry. 

_Did you send him? Did you try to kill me? I’ll kill you, too._

All of the times that she had laughed, or kissed their cheeks, or called him _Mr. Zsasz_ or _our Zsasz_ \- they were all locked away somewhere inside of her, a different girl, a different Varya. Victor let out a small, sympathetic breath.

“I know, kid.” Roman was not sure he had heard such soft pleading in Zsasz’s voice before, but Zsasz was good at this kind of thing. His skills in de-escalating and cutting people’s faces off were comparable, and admirable, in equal parts. Victor added, “We’ll make him suffer, I promise.”

It was a tantalizing promise. Zsasz was close enough now, and his oath so alluring that he was able to slowly take the hand holding the knife and lift it up a little. His fingers brushed the handle. He was at the absolute perfect height for her to run it through his eye, if she really wanted to, and Roman thought she _really_ might, the way she was standing, her whole body rigid even with Victor’s soothing pressure. If she really thought they had sent someone to kill her, if she really believed it, she would.

He rested one hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently but firmly. Roman was vaguely aware that Zsasz had done things like this to _him_ before, to calm him.

She was almost rambling now. Her voice was sharp, vitriolic, _desolate._ “You have to swear you’ll make them pay. You have to swear it. Swear, Zsasz.”

“We’ll take care of it,” he promised-not-promised. He slowly began pushing the knife out of her hand by the handle. “Swear.”

Roman held his breath. His whole body ached; every inch of him had been tensed, waiting. As soon Zsasz got the knife all the way out of her hand, he tossed it onto the bed out of her reach and grabbed her around the waist to turn her around. Within moments, Zsasz moved away from her, and Roman took her into his arms.

“Roman,” she said when he embraced her, as though she hadn’t realized he was there; like they hadn’t locked eyes, like she hadn’t looked at him and not recognized him, like her expression hadn’t said, _I killed them, I’ll kill you too, don’t touch me._

She reeked of blood. He could see tiny tears dotting her lashes like pearls, yet to make it down her cheeks, but she did not cry.

He clutched her to his chest and smoothed her hair back from her face, guiding her out of the bedroom and letting Zsasz close the door so that he was alone with the bodies. The blonde would be contacting their on-call doctor any minute now to try and preserve whatever little life their unfortunate intruder had.

He murmured into her hair, “Yes, darling, I’m here,” and felt her fingers curling into his jacket, holding on like she was afraid she would drift away. He clicked his tongue, pulling back to look at her. Though the split in her lip was beginning to bruise, there was a sharp and sudden clarity about her gaze when she looked at him, like she had returned to her body.

There was something quite lovely about her, Roman thought, like this; vicious, but tamed, only for him.

“My sweet, bloody girl,” he sighed, thumbing her jaw, “look what they did to you.”

She looked just as lovely in red as he imagined she would.

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

With great reluctance, Roman took Varya back to the Astakhov estate.

There was too much cleaning up that needed to be done in his loft - a body disposal, the tending of the needy, live one (and the subsequent gathering of the people that mattered to whoever it was that was alive to make sure they were on standby for any necessary persuasion), the blood removal out of the carpet. God, there was so much _fucking_ blood everywhere in that room; it would be weeks before the smell left his nose. Zsasz had texted Roman on the drive that if the intruder made it through the night, they’d be ready for their interview first thing in the morning.

The last person that he wanted to lay eyes on was Ilarion Astakhov; but the next safest place to be was, undoubtedly, their home. It was far enough on the outskirts of Gotham that they’d see a car approaching for miles. Zsasz would have the peace and quiet to work, and Varya would get the peace of mind to relax a little and hopefully get some sleep.

Not that she seemed very perturbed, anymore. She had inspected her split lip in the reflect of the car’s window for a while. Like shedding a skin, the violent girl that had been staring at him like he was a threatening stranger was gone, and back was his Varya, smiling a little and holding his hand over the console, interlacing and unlacing their fingers while the city blurred past them.

That wasn’t entirely true: the bloody girl, dark-eyed Varya, was his too. It was similar to keeping an exotic cat as a pet, Roman reasoned as he drove; it _could_ bite your hand off, and surely - it might try. But it was lovely to have, all the same. A status symbol, a luxury.

Varya’s nails skimmed along the back of Roman’s hand. He recalled that just a few hours ago, she had been scraping blood out from them, scrubbing her hands clean in his kitchen sink. She said, “Are they both dead?”

Roman made a low noise. “Hopefully not.”

“How unfortunate it would be if he passed,” Varya replied darkly, and he sighed, squeezing her fingers for a moment. He wanted the man alive; the idea that someone had thought to even put a hand on something of his made him boil with anger. But there was no _time_ to be angry. The attacker had been on the brink of death by the time the doctor had gotten there, and Roman wanted to drag out his life. Only for a bit longer, though.

Roman pulled the car up the driveway, putting it into park and leaning over the console to look at her. “Whichever one is alive, if he is,” he said, tilting her chin to look at him, “I’ll make sure he suffers.”

Varya’s lashes fluttered, thoroughly sweet-talked. “You _do_ know how to treat a lady, Romy.”

“All for you, kitten,” he replied. He flashed her grin and kissed her, long and deep, mindful of the cut, and then took a breath. He needed to have a perfectly clear mind; he couldn’t look Ilarion Astakhov in the face without being absolutely and completely composed first. He could already hear the fucker’s voice in his head: _How could you let this happen? Didn’t I tell you to keep her safe?_

Varya had of course called him on the way up and - much to his chagrin - spoken _exclusively_ in Russian. That was fine. He didn’t need to know what exactly was being said. He could hear it in Varya’s tone: it’s not a big deal, _it’s fine, Roman is the greatest hero a girl could ever ask for,_ and so on and so forth. 

Varya planted a final, fleeting kiss on his lips before stepping out of the car and giving a little stretch. If anything yet lingered in her from the evening, he wouldn’t have known; not now, not with the lightness in her step and in her gaze. He followed her lead up to the front steps of the manor. In the corner of his eye, Roman saw dark figures roaming the grounds, occasionally speaking to each other in low, thick voices.

Before he could reach for the door handle, it flew open to reveal Ilarion, who had clearly been awaiting their arrival. He greeted Varya first, taking her face gingerly in his hands and inspecting her. His gaze was frantic. “Your face,” he said, distressed. “You didn’t mention-”

She replied, cheeks squished gently by his hands, “It looks worse than it is.”

“I didn’t think we’d be seeing each other so soon,” Roman said, unable to help himself when the bad blood between them was still so fresh - and when he knew he had Varya on his side.

Ilarion turned to look at Roman, and his expression fell. _Murderous._

“You-” His voice was a hoarse snarl. He reached past Varya for him, clearly aiming to strangle with one hand; Roman leaned back, only a little, and that was all he needed because Varya swatted Ilarion’s hand out of the way.

“Ilya, stop it.”

“I will fucking kill you,” Ilarion spat at Roman. He tried to get around Varya, but she grabbed his wrist again. 

“You will not,” she snapped. “Ilya, I am tired, and I am sore. _Pozhaluysta_ , the one thing that I want most in the world right now is some peace and quiet, and to come in and rest.”

“You, fine.” His eyes were narrowed, dangerous. “But not _him_. If it wasn’t for him-”

“I don’t know what would be happening right now if it wasn’t for Roman, and Zsasz,” Varya insisted firmly. “We will go somewhere else, if you insist on acting out this - this childish jealousy, but there is no other place that is as safe as here right now.”

Ilarion exhaled sharply. He clearly wanted to say no, Roman could tell; and it took every ounce of his strength not to point out that, had Ilarion not humiliated Alfonzo Bianchi in front of the entire club (including his own men), he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to seek retribution, and they wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. Because Roman would have been surprised to find out that Alfonzo _wasn't_ behind this: that was almost certainly what it was. Payback, for how Ilarion had treated the mobster in front of his friends.

“Fine,” he bit out.

“Great,” Roman said with a little smile. Varya shot him a warning look over her shoulder, and ushered Ilarion inside so that they could follow. The twins spoke in hushed tones between themselves, and Roman trailed behind a little so that he could watch them interact. It was refreshing to see Ilarion less-than-composed in his rage, for once; Roman recognized it now, the same kind of sickening rage that had seethed out of him that night he slammed Bianchi’s face into the pillar at the club.

But it wasn’t seething, anymore. It _poured_.

Now, though, there was a glimmer of softness, a bit of it sifting through the sands of Ilarion’s ever nebulous personality. The brunette’s expression dimmed; Roman watched, with a little spike of jealousy, him interlace their fingers quietly and inspect the split in her lip, saying something to her in a gentler tone now. These little moments reminded Roman that for all of his cruelty, Ilarion still was closer to Varya in many ways. They had shared a womb, a childhood, that inexplicable twin-bond welding them together for life, no matter what.

Ilarion pressed a kiss to Varya’s forehead. Roman thought, _That just won’t do._

He glanced around the hallway to refamiliarize himself; he had (quite pleasantly) swept the memory of the Astakhov’s home from his mind, but now he was reminded of its glaring, disgusting luxury. Varya and Ilarion had finished their conversation, and as she headed up the stairs and Roman began to follow her, Ilarion put a hand in the way - it didn’t touch Roman ( _and he was lucky that it didn’t_ ) but the sentiment remained the same.

“The safest place in Gotham,” Ilarion said, his voice low, and tight. “That’s what you told me, isn’t it?”

Roman’s eyes narrowed. There it was: Ilarion just couldn’t help himself, and that’s what would always ultimately put him on the losing side. No matter how many times Varya asked him not to do it, he just couldn’t stop himself.

The urge to bite something out at him - to wipe that arrogance out of his expression - was almost overwhelming. Over Ilarion’s shoulder, he could see that Varya had paused on the staircase. Their gazes met; very softly, she shook her head. _Don’t._

He was consistently finding himself pitted up against Ilarion for Varya’s affections, and finding himself to come out with the capability to be better than him, in every way. That didn’t need to stop now, did it?

“I think we can both agree the most important thing is Varya getting some rest,” Roman replied after a moment, turning his gaze back to Ilarion. “Surely we can set aside our differences for an evening, yes?”

Ilarion’s lip twitched. He looked to be considering something gruesome; the idea of strangling the life out of Roman’s eyes perhaps, or at the very least attempting to, before Ilarion’s arm dropped and cleared a path for him. Roman flashed his most charming smile and stepped past him, moving up the stairs to his paramour, nudging her up the stairs again by the small of her back.

“Goodnight,” he called over the railing to the older twin, only hardly stifling the shit-eating grin on his face in time for Ilarion’s dark gaze to land on him.

And then, after a beat of consideration: “Goodnight, Roman.”

As they rounded the corner, Varya murmured, “You just cannot resist poking at him, can you?” and Roman laughed, following her down the hall.

“Your brother has a remarkable talent to make everything sound like a threat.”

“It is just the accent.”

Roman pressed his lips together, thinly veiling his contempt. It was hard, even when Varya was so charming; if anyone else were to talk to him like this, he supposed they would have been dead by now, or at the very least their tongues cut out and tossed into the ocean for the fishes to eat. But not Ilarion. No, somehow - _somehow_ that fuck managed to dance just out of his grasp, hoarding one thing or another that Roman wanted, and that he wouldn’t be able to _get_ if Ilarion was dead. Varya, or the guns, or immunity from the Astakhov mob seeking him out. If there was one thing he knew, it was how to bide his time. People thought him impulsive - and he was, sometimes - but he wasn’t _stupid_.

He was deserving. Of everyone in this great big fucking world, he deserved it the most.

Varya opened a door into what he assumed was her bedroom. All of this time together, and Roman realized he had never actually seen the whole of the Astakhov manor. Having her with him, staying in the loft, and then coming back here was like her having one foot in each world.

Her room was different than what he had anticipated. It certainly still spoke to her status as an Astakhov; nothing about it was _cheap_ , it just didn’t radiate the same kind of pretentiousness the rest of the house did. Instead of white marble and golden accents, the room was dressed in soft, cornflower blues and whites, the wooden furniture stained dark to contrast. A tall bookcase, nearly reaching the ceiling was meticulously packed with books, and a vanity on the far side of the room housed a few loose photos and a dried rose, hung upside down from the mirror.

“Surprised?” Varya asked him, having noticed his studious gaze.

“No,” he replied after a moment of consideration. “It looks like you.”

She looked pleased. Turning away from him, she moved into the closet to change out of the shirt she had been wringing blood out of just hours ago. 

Roman stepped out of his shoes and made his way over to the vanity, glancing through some of the photos. There was one of what appeared to be the twins as children, with Varya sitting on Ilarion’s shoulders; they wore matching red scarves, and the gloomy expression on Ilarion’s face only managed to convince Roman further that in a few decades, the man had not changed at all.

There was another photo, with the twins, presumably their mother and father, and another man. He squinted at the photo; the man that Roman thought had to be Nikita Astakhov had all of the hard, sharp lines of a man accustomed to cruelty. His hand gripped young Ilarion’s shoulder. Next to him, a man with _remarkably_ similar features stood, grinning at the camera.

“Is your father a twin as well?” he called. Varya stuck her head out of the closet, tossing the bloodied clothes on the floor.

“No,” she replied. “He is an only child. That is his best friend, Artyem. They always made jokes about how they were long lost twins, though.”

She had changed into some pajamas, and now she wandered up to him, taking his hands and pulling him to the bed. It took no force or pressure for her to push him to sit on the bed; the brunette slid into his lap and began making smooth, easy work of his jacket. With the familiarity of a long-time lover, her fingers began undoing the buttons of his shirt.

“Miss Astakhova, are you trying to seduce me when your brother is just downstairs?” Roman feigned indignation. “Very unladylike of you.”

“You’re not sleeping in a suit,” she teased. She smoothed a hand along his chest, and then up along the slope of his neck, her hand warm. Roman let his hands roam, too, skimming along the skin of her back beneath the tank top she wore, before he tilted his head down to kiss her bruising knuckles.

“You know, your brother keeps complaining about how I’m not protecting you, but I’m not convinced that you need it in the least.” He watched the little smile flicker across her lips and thought, _that’s right. Drink it in, pet._ He continued, “If Zsasz hadn’t gotten you to drop that knife, we wouldn’t have anyone to interrogate tomorrow.”

Varya’s lashes fluttered absently. He thought he could tell what she was thinking - that if Zsasz hadn’t gotten her to drop the knife, she might have tried to kill them, too. What a shame it would have been, to have to put her down for something like that, for being someone who didn’t remember them. “We’re lucky to have him,” she said after a moment

He brought her down to kiss her, tangling his fingers into her hair. “You were quite cruel to him, you know,” he murmured lightly, trying to bring her attention away from whatever else was captivating her. “He’s only ever known sweetness from you.”

She sighed into his kiss and leaned into his touch. Lighter now, she promised, “I will make it up to him.”

Roman hummed low and warm against her kiss. “Not too _thoroughly,_ I’d hope.”

Varya laughed. Her fingers dug into his shoulder a little when he flipped her around, pressing her back into the bed. The moment felt _nice_ \- as though hours ago, he had not been convinced that she was conspiring against him with her brother, or at least was privy to the disrespect he’d been dished. It was easy to forget, when she was like this.

“Roman?” Her voice was softer now. “You don’t know anything about those men breaking in tonight, do you?”

It took a minute for him to realize what she was asking: _did you send them for me?_ It was the same feeling he had gotten when he’d seen her in the loft, that she suspected they had some part to play in it. Roman swept his gaze over her face, looking for any inkling of paranoia or accusation he had heard then too - but there was nothing. Her doe-eyes were watching him patiently, open and trusting. It was the first time he had looked at her and not felt as though he were trying to piece together the truth of her feelings. For the first time, Roman felt like he was _really seeing her_ , no masquerade.

 _I’ve got you,_ he thought, and the realization sent a thrill rushing through him. _I’ve finally got you. You’re mine._

He reached down and kissed her, cradling her jaw. “Is this Ilarion’s question or yours?”

She pressed her lips together, uncertain, and then said, “He - wondered. He did not say for sure, but he anticipated you were not happy with him, and…”

 _You fucker._ “You know me better than he does, pet,” Roman replied easily. Ilarion was determined to unseat him at every opportunity - and that would not go unforgotten. “Is that something you think?”

When her gaze flickered back to his, there was a sharp clarity about it - and _trust_.

“No,” she said after a moment, long enough for Roman to know she had thought about throwing a wall up with him, and she hadn’t. “No, I don’t think that.”

He grinned. “Then there’s your answer.”


	10. interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman and Varya get a little break, as a treat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a nice little in-between chapter! It was about 2k words longer, but I figured a little break from all of the ~*drama*~ would be nice. So, have a little fluff, a little intrigue, and settle in for the storm to come.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who comments and leaves kudos; it really does make my whole day and keep me going!

Roman slept restlessly; he had underestimated the exact level of comfort he felt in his own home, and even though Varya's bed was perfectly _fine_ , the only comfort about it was that she was there. Each time in the night when he woke up, he would sit up, abruptly, until he remembered where he was and how he'd gotten there--and then the warmth of Varya's body grounded him back to sleep.

When he did wake again, the bed was empty. He rolled out of it and looked around, and just as he was about to walk out into the hall he heard the splash of water from the bathroom. _Ah, there she went_ , he thought, as though his mind's first leap wasn't that she had left him. How could she? They were in _her_ home.

Roman pushed the door to the bathroom open. Varya had sunk herself into a porcelain, clawfoot bathtub, elevated on a slab of clean marble that rose above the floor of the bathroom itself. The room was decorated with verdant green plants; the large, romantic French windows draped in gauzy curtains to soften the hard morning light. Steam rose from the water of her bath, and the perfume of roses mingled in the humid air.

"Well, aren't you in a good mood this morning?" Roman asked, making his way over to her. Her eyes flickered open. She smiled when she saw him, turning over so that her chin was resting on her hands, perched at the edge of the porcelain bathtub like a siren to beckon him.

"Good morning, lover," Varya murmured. He rubbed his eyes, sighing. Was it a good morning? He couldn't recall if he had thought that. She watched him, her eyes soft as velvet. "You didn't sleep well."

It wasn't a question, but an observation. He didn't want to say, _I hate sleeping in your home. I hate knowing your brother is just a floor away from us. I didn't ever want to come back to this fucking house._

Well, he did want to say it; he just knew better.

"How could I?" he replied. He reached up and grazed his thumb along her lip, where the split had begun to heal slowly. Her lips still purpled elsewhere, marbling beneath the cupid's bow of her mouth. He could see other bruises darkening too: those on her knuckles, fingerprint marks below her collarbone. It wasn't a lie, to say that this is what had kept him up. In a way, it was. "Knowing that someone did this to you."

Varya closed her eyes against his touch and pulled him in to kiss him. It was slow, leisurely. "Worse things have happened," she murmured, absently into his kiss, like an afterthought; as though the thing she was really thinking about was kissing him, in that moment, and it made his stomach twist pleasantly.

She was so soft like this. Last night was erased from her; when Roman looked, all he saw was a sweet creature, bathed in warm morning light. Since the day he had met her he'd wanted her like this - gazing at him like he was the only thing that mattered to her.

"Heretical stance," he rumbled against her mouth, and then sighed a little. "No word from Zsasz yet, but - hopefully soon. I did _only_ get your brother to agree to a single night of putting our differences aside."

Varya clicked her tongue. "Oh, you're spoiling my bath," she sighed. "I don't want to hear anything else about you and Ilarion not getting along. I love you both, precious and dear to me in equal amounts." She nipped his lower lip with her teeth, making a sweet noise into their kiss; he felt her damp fingers curling into his hair at the nape of his neck. "Join me."

 _Wicked_ , Roman thought elatedly, indulging himself for just a moment. He could forget about the contract, and the intruder waiting for his attention, if only she would keep making those noises. "Is that a request or an order?" he teased. 

"Whichever will you get in here."

He laughed and pulled back. "No bath for me this morning, I'm afraid. And as for your brother - I assure you, my love, the bad blood only goes one way."

She eyed him. She had leaned back into the tub, sinking into the water until it was halfway up her neck, submerging almost all of her bruising. "I see how you look at him, Romy. He gets under your skin and you do the same to him," she said. And then, after a pause, she continued more delightedly: "Your love, am I?"

He rolled his eyes and pressed a kiss to her temple, coming to a stand. He had a lot to prepare for, considering where the morning was going. "I'm going to get dressed in my clothes from last night like a fucking civilian on a walk of shame, since we didn't have the foresight to bring any," he said over his shoulder.

He could hear the grin in her voice when she called after him, "You're not answering my question, so I will supply myself whatever answer makes me the happiest."

It was late morning when Roman finally heard from Zsasz. Varya and Ilarion were eating their breakfast in the living room downstairs; she had carefully and skillfully applied just enough makeup to, at the very least, blend the bruising away, so that Ilarion seemed in a better mood than the night before. Roman had excused himself to take the call, impatient for news. 

Their intruder was alive, and - more interestingly - was Alfonzo Bianchi himself.

"What?" Roman had hissed into the phone. He paced into Varya's bedroom when Zsasz told him. The sound of the twins' muffled downstairs voices made him content that he hadn't been heard.

"Yeah, boss. I thought there was no fuckin' way, you know? But it's definitely him."

Roman felt the blood pounding through his head. Alfonzo Bianchi - scum of the earth, actual piece of shit - was in _his_ home. Touching _his_ things. The image of Alfonzo's hands on Varya, ripping her shirt, grabbing her face, flickered through his mind; his stomach churned. He gritted his teeth against the bitter anger seeping through him.

"Boss?"

Roman took a deep breath. He had to remind himself that this was better than he could have imagined: even though he would need every inch of his loft scrubbed, again, that was fine. He now had Alfonzo Bianchi committing a cardinal sin against the Astakhov family, and not only would Ilarion be indebted to him for punishing the man who had tried to assault his sister, but that was one less mobster for _him_ to worry about.

This was fine.

"Great," he said after a moment of centering himself. "That's great. You know, Zsasz - that's really great. Why don't you give our friend the VIP treatment and have him waiting for me in the club by the time I get back."

There was a pause on the line; Roman could hear the delight in Zsasz's voice when he said, "You got it."

Roman ended the call and slid his phone into his pocket, throwing his jacket over his arm and jogging down the stairs. He was itching to get his hands on Alfonzo.

"Zsasz is ready for us, kitten," he called, turning the corner into the living room. Varya's gaze was inquisitive. "Your assailant - very unfortunately - survived his turbulent night and now awaits his judge, jury, and executioner. Me, of course," he added, as if that weren't clear. He beckoned for her. "Come along."

"I will come too," Ilarion said, coming to stand when Varya did, and Roman scoffed. And then, in the spirit of playing nice, he cleared his throat again to cover it up, catching Varya's _look_.

"I wouldn't want to put you through the hassle," Roman replied smoothly. "If you think about it, you were probably more of a target than Varya was - she was just the closest. It's probably safer for you if you stay here. So-" He paused to consider his words. _Magnanimous, giving. Gracious. Don't make it about you._ "Let _me_ do this for _you_."

Ilarion's eyes narrowed. He seemed to agree, and also to want to argue. He said, finally, "Keep him alive and bring him to me when you're done. And - Varya should not go."

"I agree," Roman replied. Ilarion opened his mouth again to argue, and then stopped, surprised.

"What?"

"Yes," Varya said, frowning now and crossing her arms over her chest, "explain."

"I don't think she should be there when I torture this man for what he did," Roman clarified. This whole interaction was taking too long. "However-" He paused and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. She did not seem appeased by his gesture, and her expression said, _no, please, continue speaking as if I'm not here_ , but she waited for him to elaborate. Roman sighed.

"However," he continued, "I could never tell her no if she asked me."

"Did she?" Ilarion demanded, looking at her. She turned her gaze back to Roman.

"Please?"

"You see?" Roman gestured vaguely. "My hands are tied."

"I have told my sister no plenty of times." Ilarion's voice was frustrated. He began to follow them as Roman made his way toward the front door.

 _And that's why you're fighting a losing battle._ "You're a stronger man than I, Ilarion Astakhov!" Roman called over his shoulder, opening the door for Varya and unlocking the car. "Will report back within the day, probably - maybe a little longer. I still have that contract to look over, so, _you know_."

Ilarion stopped in the doorway of the house. Varya had already walked down the steps, just as eager as Roman was to see the face of her attacker. Wouldn't she be surprised when she found out who it was?

The older Astakhov said, "Wait," and Roman stopped, turning to look back at the brunette. He did not try to hide his exasperation at being stopped again, but if it bothered Ilarion, it didn't show.

"I want him back alive," Ilarion reiterated, biting out the words. "Drop him on my doorstep tied up like a hog, if you have to, but not dead, Roman."

Roman sighed. He wasn't going to be looking over that contract, not even a little bit, because it was worthless; it wouldn't end up being that way. But -

But, he could - perhaps - in the spirit of exemplifying graciousness and being, all around, superior in every way -

"Anything for you," Roman replied after a moment, managing out a smile. Ilarion's eyes narrowed.

"I _mean_ it-"

"So do I." Roman waved over his shoulder and headed to the car, sliding into the driver's seat and taking a deep breath. _Alright, so, we can't kill Alfonzo - that's fine. His wife, maybe. The kids. Zsasz said he got them. That should be fine._

He pulled the car around the long, circular drive and watched Ilarion's figure in the doorway of his big, lonely mansion grow smaller and smaller behind them in the rear-view mirror. As the car slid into an easy cruise on the highway, Roman took in a breath.

After a moment in the car of comfortable silence, Varya asked, "Who is it?"

He glanced over at her. "What makes you think they're anyone of importance?" he asked. A small, wry smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"I heard you hissing into your phone," she replied. "Not what you said, but - just that you were. And you didn't say who it was in front of Ilarion, which means you probably thought he'd be upset about it if he knew-"

"Alfonzo Bianchi." He was trying not to be irritated that she was catching on to him so easily. "The one who lived was Alfonzo Bianchi, the other was someone we didn't recognize as one of his men. Zsasz said he couldn't find anything on him, but he's also had his hands full with our live guest, so who's to say we won't find something out yet?"

Even saying the man's name soured Roman's mood. Alfonzo Bianchi was a nobody; he played at being a gangster, but like every other fuck in this disgusting city, everything he had was gained _without_ work. Visions of peeling Bianchi's face off of his skull and shipping it to his father first class flickered through Roman's mind. Only a dream, after his promise to Ilarion.

Varya had grown quiet. "Then he is the one who ripped my shirt," she said after a moment.

"I'm aware. He apparently can't help trying to brag, even when he's a hostage."

"I loved that shirt."

Roman laughed, the sound escaping him abruptly and catching even himself off-guard. Varya flashed him a smile; he reached over to take her hand. "Don't worry, pet," he said, amused, "I'll buy you a hundred more if that will make you happy."

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

The drive back to the club felt like it took forever, perhaps because Roman just couldn't wait to get back. He pulled up to the alley entrance and tossed the keys to one of the men so that he could open the passenger door to let Varya out. As they retraced his steps from last night, the only difference being that the locks on the doors were freshly replaced, Roman felt a little prickle of _something_ in his gut - he recognized it as apprehension.

He glanced back at Varya when they entered the loft to see if anything was different, if the hairpin trigger she had proven capable of tripping over and over again was under pressure. Nothing seemed to change on her face as she set her coat down on the back of the couch, glancing around the room for a moment. A few of Roman's men lingered here and there, but to Varya, they may as well have been furniture.

"You have a good cleaning crew," she said after a moment.

"Well, I haven't seen what job they did on the bedroom carpet yet," he admitted, his eyes narrowing. His head was pounding; everywhere he looked, he just kept thinking, _that fuck was in here. God, I can't fucking wait to rip his fucking face off--_

Except he wouldn't. He would deliver Alfonzo Bianchi to Ilarion on a silver platter, and Ilarion would be in his debt, and then he would get the guns, and then...

It was a tired mental circle, now. Roman didn't want to think about it much longer if he could help it, so instead he went and changed out of his clothes from the night before and into something new and clean, resetting his mind. He watched his reflection in the mirror, feeling oddly - like he was someone else, disconnected from who had been before, but the face was the same. What was he talking about?

_I'm Roman fucking Sionis. That's who I am, not anyone else._

He splashed some water onto his face, dried off, and then headed back out into the main room of the loft. Varya was waiting expectantly by the hallway to the elevator, and smiled as he approached. He took her face in his hands.

"Wait here," he said, and watched the smile slip from her face. "Just for a little while, until I come and get you. Graham here will keep you company and make sure that nobody fucks with you, alright?" He gestured to one of the men standing just a few feet away.

Varya's brows furrowed. She began, "Roman, you said-"

"I _know_ what I said, Varya," he interrupted sharply, and then sighed. He saw the way her eyes narrowed. "What I mean is - I'm not going back on what I said. All I want is a little alone time with our dear friend before you come in to enjoy yourself. You tend to have very - _distracting_ qualities, and as soon as you get in there, all he's going to want to do is talk to you."

The brunette pressed her lips into a thin line. "Fine."

"Great," Roman replied, feeling a sharp prickling of dread in his chest. It was deja vu, he realized, recalling the way that Ilarion had bit out the exact same exchange with him just the previous night. Determined to wipe that from his mind, he said, "Be a doll and give me a kiss and tell me how incredible I am."

Varya's gaze swept over him, and then she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him - no need for tip toes now, not in those heels - and said against his mouth, "The most, but don't tell Ilya."

"I would never."

Roman flashed her his most charming smile and gestured for her to go and make herself comfortable. Graham moved to follow, but before he could pass, Roman pressed a hand to his chest to stop him.

He said in a low voice, "Her brother will make a three course meal out of us if anything else happens to her, and I'm going to be _really fucking pissed_ if I go to all this trouble and I don't get my _fucking guns_ , got it?"

The man nodded, swallowing thickly. "Yes, sir."

"Tell me you understand."

"I understand - boss."

"Good."

Roman brushed past him, making his way to the elevator and jamming his finger into the button. As soon as the doors opened and he stepped inside, he heard Varya's voice asking Graham if he'd ever tried good vodka, _really_ good vodka, and he felt a little relief. It was satisfying to know that she would listen to him when he told her to do something. It made him feel secure knowing he had her exactly where he wanted her.

The elevator dinged, bringing Roman back to reality, and he stepped out and made his way into the main room of the club. All of the chairs were flipped up onto counters and tables, out of the way, and the main lights were turned on low. As he approached Alfonzo Bianchi tied up in his chair, on the center of the stage, Roman let out a little, pleased sigh.

Finally. _Some good fucking entertainment._


	11. young & menace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman is reminded of all of the things he loves (hates) about his girl or: a dissertation on why Varya should never be within arm's length of a weapon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you on an emotional rollercoaster? I'm on an emotional rollercoaster. I had so much fun writing this chapter and making myself laugh at these two fucking dumbasses. I rly hope everyone likes it, and please let me know what you think! The plot thickens (quite literally this chapter is.... hefty).
> 
> Per sithmarauder's inspiration, the tags have been updated; we all know Roman likes to be bullied (only a little).
> 
> Warnings for this chapter include swearing and gore.

Roman prowled to the stage, feeling a bit of relief now that the moment was finally here. He was in his club, in his element; this was _his fucking place,_ exactly where he was supposed to be. Alfonzo Bianchi was going to be begging for his life by the end of this.

Upon closer inspection, the man looked to be thoroughly battered; Zsasz had made good work on his order, that was for certain. Each bruise or cut on Alfonzo’s body and face weren’t enough, though.

Zsasz had jumped off of the stage and made his way over to Roman when he entered, saying, “They’re bringing his wife and kids right now.”

“Why aren’t they already fucking here?” Roman hissed at him. Zsasz frowned.

“They were putting up a bigger fight than-”

“Roman.” Alfonzo lifted his head a little, staring at him hazily, and coughed. A wry, shit-eating grin pulled at his mouth. Roman’s gestured for Zsasz to stop talking, turning his attention back to their unfortunate ward.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

“You’re still alive, huh?” Alfonzo coughed, spitting blood out onto the stage floor. Roman’s lip curled.

“You seem surprised.” Roman wandered over to the stage, looking Alfonzo up and down. _Disgusting._ Alfonzo coughed again, and when he grinned, Roman could see the blood in between his teeth.

Alfonzo said, “I’m not a genius -”

“Astonishing.”

“- but even I know not to pull my pants down when a viper opens its mouth,” he finished, narrowing his eyes. Roman scoffed; Alfonzo didn’t know what he was talking about, of course. How could he? He was an idiot, a nobody, a nothing, a -

 _But you do think he might be at least a little right,_ that voice reminded Roman eerily. _You’ve always thought you were getting in bed with something dangerous._

“I suppose you’re going to tell me you were trying to do me a favor.” His voice had sharpened. He had all of this pent-up anger inside of him; poor Alfonzo was going to be the punching bag for it. “By attempting to kill Varya - who everyone knows, by the way, is property of-”

“Do you know,” Alfonzo interrupted, “that baby snakes, when they bite - they pump out every last bit of venom they have?” His head lolled back absently on his shoulder; he was clearly tired and worn, all by his own hand. “Their venom isn’t as strong, you know, as an adult’s, so when they have to bite, they empty it all out in that single strike.”

Roman held out his hands, as if to say, ‘is there a point to this?’ Alfonzo squinted at Roman for a long moment, and then said, “You’re getting pumped full of poison, my friend.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he snapped, gritting his teeth. “What is this, fucking Animal Planet? You’re a nobody piece of shit trying to repair a bruised ego, because a _boy_ hurt your feelings in front of your friends, but the fact of the matter is you had nothing to have an ego about in the first place - you _have._ _Nothing_.”

“Did you think that I did this for me?” Alfonzo asked, surprised. “No - this was a favor.”

“Finally, some fucking useful information!” Roman threw his arms up, scoffing with incredulity. “You know, Alfonzo, I would think that knowing I have your wife and children would _inspire_ you to offer up your information more readily.” He put a foot up on the stage, propping his elbow up to hold his chin. “Any minute now. If you need more incentive, I am sure our friend Zsasz would be _happy_ to remind you who exactly you’re fucking with right now.”

Alfonzo gave him a lazy, toothy grin, and spit more blood out to the side. “Why don’t you ask your lover, Roman?”

He sucked in a sharp breath. It was infuriating him that Alfonzo was playing this little game; _he_ was in control, not Alfonzo. Alfonzo was the one tied up to a chair with his family in immediate danger. And if anyone thought Roman Sionis was above killing children, they were a fucking idiot.

“I never took you for the kind of man that gambled with the lives of his progeny,” Roman bit out. “I’m asking _you_ to-”

He heard the sound of the elevator dinging with an arrival. There was no time for him to hide his absolute _burning_ frustration; he turned his head to look back at the entrance to see Varya, with Graham trailing - helplessly - after her, her heels biting into the floor as she walked.

“Excuse me,” Roman said, pulling away from the stage and turning. He met her halfway into the room, doing his best to conceal every ounce of seething anger he had in his body. “I told you to wait until I came to get you.” 

Varya smoothed her hand over the lapel of his jacket, smiling sweetly as she said, “Are you torturing him by chatting him to death?”

Alfonzo’s words were echoing in his head. _Even I know not to pull my pants down when a viper opens its mouth._

He remembered the way she had looked at him when they fought, the way she had goaded him into hitting her. _Go ahead, then. Do it, if you want to so badly._ His jaw clenched. He didn’t have time for this.

“We will talk about this later,” he said into her hair, resting a hand on the small of her back.

“If you’d like,” she answered pleasantly. She brushed past him and headed towards the center of the room, where she could get a good look at Alfonzo. Roman glared at Graham, mouthing the words _you’re fucked_ before he stalked after her.

“Hello, Mr. Bianchi,” Varya said calmly, slowing down a bit as she neared the stage. He laughed a little.

“Hello, little snake,” he replied, grinning at her. “You seem in better spirits than when we last spoke. More clothed, too.”

“So do you.” Her eyes narrowed. “Unfortunately.”

He continued on, as if he hadn’t heard her: “I was just telling your man there that he should be asking _you_ for information. But, I guess that isn’t completely right, is it?” The man paused, and then with all of the wickedness in the world, he leaned forward and sing-songed at her, “ _I know something you don’t know._ ”

Roman’s stomach flipped. Not because of what Alfonzo was saying, but because of the expression on Varya’s face. All of the softness fled from her face; there was something darker in her expression now, reminiscent of the night she had intended to kill Bianchi.

“Kill him, Zsasz,” Varya bit out abruptly. The venom _welled_ in her voice, like a tidal wave. Zsasz was standing next to Alfonzo again, the knife in his hand, and he turned his gaze questioningly to his boss. Roman sucked his teeth, shaking his head just a little, and beckoned Graham to come up; Varya needed to leave. She was too invested in the outcome of this little gathering to be effective anymore.

He lowered his mouth to her ear, giving her hip a squeeze, and said, “This is a waste of your time, doll. You should go back upstairs-”

“You promised.” She was looking at Zsasz now, Roman’s words rolling right over her. Varya’s voice was tight, controlled, but _stressed_ , fraying at the edges. “You promised me you would make him _suffer-_ ”

Zsasz said, a little helplessly, “He can’t suffer if he’s dead.”

Graham stood a little behind Varya now. On the stage, Alfonzo began to laugh, low and wet. His glossy, bloodshot eyes were fixed on Varya, as though no one else in the room existed.

“He’s coming for you,” he said, almost so soft that Roman might have missed it. Varya’s hands clenched at her sides.

“Fucking - _kill_ him, Zsasz-”

“Do not,” Roman ordered, pointing at Victor. “Varya-”

Alfonzo’s laughter was slick with blood. “He’s coming for you, and he knows your name, _Varushka._ ”

Roman had barely the time to turn back to her before he saw that she had grabbed the gun off of Graham’s belt. With sickening, cold precision, she flicked the safety off, lifted the gun, and fired three rounds directly into Alfonzo Bianchi’s face, two feet away from him.

“Jesus fuck!” Zsasz had scrambled out of the way the minute he saw her holding the gun. The gun shots echoed eerily in the empty club. Roman had ducked his head out of pure instinct; his vision swam as his fight-or-flight kicked in, his ears ringing. He saw Varya look at the gun for a moment, and then lift it and fire another three shots into Alfonzo’s chest before flicking the safety back on and then holding it out to Graham, an apathetic expression carved into her features. The only indication that anything adverse had occurred at all was the look of disdain that passed over her, like a cloud on a sunny day.

Slowly and uneasily, Graham took the gun back from her. With all of the composure of a practiced killer, she turned and walked away, the click of her heels smarting against the floor and back toward the elevator.

Roman stared at Alfonzo Bianchi’s corpse. His own head was a riot: he couldn’t make sense of what had just happened. Bianchi’s face was blown away beyond recognition, bullet holes littering his skull and chest cavity, his body slumped in the chair. He couldn’t get the man’s last words out of his head. They played on repeat, a broken record.

_He’s coming for you and he knows your name, Varushka._

It was familiar. It dug at him, and bit at him, and he could _not_ \- remember -

“Clean this fucking mess,” Roman said to Zsasz, straightening up. “I’ll go deal with that one.”

Roman was only vaguely aware of himself as he made his way up to the loft; he might as well have been an audience member watching his life play out before him. His heart felt like it was hammering in his chest, his vision blurring in and out of focus. He paced in the elevator, feeling it rattle under the force of his steps, and when it opened he stalked out of it and into the loft. 

Varya was there, pouring herself a drink at the bar car with her back to him. He stopped in the entrance and thought, for a minute, of all of the things that he wanted to say - _you selfish fucking girl, I give you everything and you pour gasoline on it and light it on fire, you have no idea what you’ve done_.

Instead, he said, “What the fuck was that?”

Varya did not turn to face him. She drank the entire contents of her glass, filled it with more ice, and then poured more drink into it. Roman grabbed the bottle out of her hand - deciding, quite graciously, to leave the glass - and threw it angrily into the wall. It was satisfying, to hear the glass shatter, to watch the shards skitter across the floor like iridescent beetles. He felt like he couldn’t take a full breath.

“We hadn’t gotten a single fucking _bit_ of information out of him, Varya,” he hissed, spitting out the rage that was boiling inside of him. “I _told_ you to wait here until I came to get you. And I swore to Ilarion I’d bring him that man alive. Here I am,” he said, throwing his arms out, “trying to do a favor for your dumb _fucking_ brother so that he’ll finally piss off to whatever Slavic shithole he keeps jetsetting off to, and - because I know it’d make you _happy_ to get along with him - and you _just_ -” He took in a deep, heavy breath, but he didn’t feel more calm; he only felt _more._ “Every time I think I have an idea of what you’re going to do, you _don’t_ -”

The brunette finally turned to face him now. She arched one brow elegantly at him, prompting him to continue, and sipped her drink. All it did was serve to infuriate him more. He closed the distance between them, scowling.

“Not to mention, your brother gave me a piece of shit contract,” he seethed. “He cut out the exclusivity. Did you know about that? Were you aware that your brother gives you an _illusion_ of freedom to fuck whoever you want, and then he uses that as a ploy to back them against the proverbial cliff? ‘Stop fucking my sister and you can have all of the exclusive guns you want, Roman,’ is basically all it was.”

Varya’s lashes fluttered, absent and far away. He kept waiting for her to interrupt him, expecting it - _wishing_ she would, just once, _test it just once, and see where it goes_ \- but she didn’t. She let him go and go and go, all of the adrenaline and rage flooding his system.

Roman watched her, his jaw clenching so hard that his head was surging with pain. With all of the gracious control he had left, he managed out, “Tell me who he was talking about, Varya.”

Her lips parted to say something; her gaze was fixed on his chest. She took a swallow of the vodka in her glass before she said, “I don’t know.”

“Bull _shit_ ,” Roman spat. “That is absolute _bullshit_ . You just fired six fucking rounds into the face and chest of a man mocking you and spouting some - hysterical nonsense and you _don’t_ know something I don’t know?”

“It’s not nonsense,” she began, halting uncertainly, and then continued, “I don’t know who he was talking about, Roman.”

Roman lifted his hand to his forehead, pressing down on the headache that practically vibrated in his skull. “You had stabbed him multiple times, and then Zsasz beat the living shit out of him. He got dangled over the brink of death and dragged back two times in less than twenty-four hours. Explain to me how he was not speaking absolute _fucking_ nonsense, _Varya!_ ”

“I don’t know!” she snapped back at him. “I don’t know who he was talking about because it sounds like he was talking about my father, and that can’t be because-”

She stopped. Roman stared at her, eyes narrowed, waiting for her to finish. Like that morning at breakfast, when she had divulged her paranoia and fear of finding her personal things misplaced by an intruder, she had been talking more than she wanted. The enigmatic nature of her mind was slowly piecing itself together in front of him, so close he could almost _taste_ it.

“Because?” Roman prompted, his voice hard.

Varya sighed, her mouth downturned in bitter disdain. “Because he is dead,” she bit out at last. Her voice wobbled, just a little. “Because I killed him, so I do not know how he could be speaking about my father.”

He thought about Varya against the wall of the alley, watching him with dark eyes, talking about her father and his boogeyman. _Papa Koschei is coming for you, and he knows your name, Varushka._

That was where he knew it. The boogeyman story that her father used to tell her, that she had told to him. That’s why those words sounded familiar; that’s why they drove a rut into his brain, over and over, when Alfonzo said it. His stomach churned, not because of the admission of patricide - but because of the implications of what Alfonzo had said. 

According to Varya, Nikita Astakhov was dead. So who was paying Alfonzo Bianchi off?

“He’s dead,” Roman repeated, dazed.

“Yes.”

“And you killed him.”

She paused. “Well, Ilya and I both.” She took in a breath, smoothing her hands back through her hair and finally looking at him. It was finally making sense, why Varya’s reaction had been so tense: because her father was supposed to be dead, and was somehow sending killers her way from the grave.

This only seemed to give Roman more questions. He could barely think through his splintering headache.

“Why?” he asked after a minute. “And - when? This whole time, everyone - Zsasz _said_ \- I told you that Zsasz said he had heard your dad was dead and you didn’t say _anything_ -”

“If you can think of every horrible thing you have ever heard of my father doing to people he doesn’t know-” Varya’s voice was terse. “-imagine the liberties he would take with those he felt were his property.”

Roman knew what he’d heard. Nikita Astakhov, dining with corpses of men who had wronged him, sitting at his table like puppets. He hadn’t thought of the twins, still children, sitting at that table with empty, taxidermy dinner guests.

But, more than that - 

“You _lied_ to me,” Roman said. The accusation rose in his voice, stoking the fire inside him again. “You fucking _lied_ to me, Varya.”

“Yes.” She was biting the words out, crunching their bones between her teeth. “I lied to you. So what, he is dead? We are all dead, anyway. _Vso_ . It doesn’t matter. He is nothing anymore.” There was real anger in her voice now, the kind of anger he heard in her voice when she had argued with Ilya, the kind of anger in her voice when she had dared him to hit her. It was like she was trying to reassure herself that he _was_ , in fact, nothing - this nightmare, chasing her down.

She stepped around him, heading for the door, and he reached for her. His fingers grasped her wrist.

“ _Come here_ ,” he ordered venomously. “We aren’t done speaking-”

“Oh?” Varya had turned back to him now, pulling her wrist out of his grip. “You want to complain about my brother’s contract some more? Poor Roman, something is a little _harder_ for him than he had _planned_.” She feigned sympathy, so saccharine sweet it made his teeth ache, and ran her hand along his chest. “Do you want me to go and pester my big brother to be nicer to you? Throw another bottle at the wall, _Romy._ ”

His eyes narrowed. She was pushing him, _pushing pushing pushing_ , jamming her finger into his buttons over and over. He began, warningly, “You are skating on thin fucking ice, Varya-”

Her fingers gripped his shirt and pulled, _hard._ The movement was reminiscent of the way she pulled him down for a kiss. “I have already killed twice to keep you for myself,” she hissed, _so close._ “If you want everything - me, the guns, all until the black end of the world like you say you do - start fucking acting like it.”

Roman pushed her hand off of his shirt, biting down so hard in his mouth he thought his teeth were going to crack. This girl. This _ungrateful, spoiled, selfish_ -

“Get. Out.” Seething. _Ungrateful. Spoiled. Selfish._ The words wound themselves around his brain, a boa squeezing and tightening until his head felt like it was going to explode. Everything he had done for her - after _everything_ \- she had the _fucking audacity_ -

Varya’s eyes narrowed into amber slits. 

“You are _impossible._ ”

Roman could not believe that she was still talking. _That fucking mouth_ , he thought bitterly. He watched her go to grab her coat.

“ _I’m_ impossible?” he demanded, trailing after her. He wasn’t done arguing. He wouldn’t be done for _hours._ He could out-argue the fuck out of her, if she wanted to play that game. “Pot, meet the fucking kettle!”

“Goodbye, _lover_ ,” Varya snapped over her shoulder, slamming the door to the stairwell behind her.

And then it was silent. He kept waiting, impatiently, for her to come back in and offer some kind of explanation - she was just tired, it was just a joke, she didn’t mean it - but she didn’t. The only thing that indicated to him that she had actually been there was the lingering scent of her perfume and the rumpled fabric of his shirt where she’d grabbed him.

A minute passed, and then an hour - maybe more. Roman poured himself drink after drink after drink, broken glass crunching his feet as he paced the apartment. His hands itched. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t go after her - no. That wasn’t an option. He would look like a fool, an idiot, _whipped_. No one made a fool out of Roman fucking Sionis, not even Varya Astakhova.

He would wait for her. She would come back.

They always did.


	12. playing with fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, Romy,” she murmured. Her eyes narrowed. “I would never play fair for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look at this! It's a chapter with actual sex in it! I have yet to publish any explicit smut on this website (it has all been limited to my personal Google docs) but it was about time with these two. I honestly can't believe it took me twelve chapters to get to a full smut scene, anyway.
> 
> Nobody:  
> Me: Siren by Kailee Morgue is a great mood song for this chapter!
> 
> Ahhhh man I'm really sweating! I hope this is ok and you guys like it! Special little s/o to [Starcrier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrier/pseuds/Starcrier) here on ao3 and tumblr for being able to read my exact brainthoughts on these two dickheads and formalizing it coherently (and inspiring me to keep going!). <3 And, of course, the loml [sithmarauder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithmarauder/pseuds/sithmarauder), who (somehow/someway) still tolerates my nonsensical ramblings!
> 
> Take heed of the warning tags on this fic: a little bit of a daddy kink occurring, but maybe not in the way you expect it to. Swearing, mentions of patricide, table sex, the promise (threat?) of a threesome, though it doesn't actually happen. Also, these two cannot stop fucking talking to each other, even during sex -- I'm sorry. :u

A full week passed before Roman heard anything from either of the twins. He resolutely did not reach out; Varya had left, and even though he’d _told_ her to leave, what she should have done was just apologized and stayed. Obviously.

Unsurprisingly, Ilarion was the first one to contact him. Roman considered it unsurprising because, if there was one thing he thought could be readily expected out of Varya, it was _spite_. He was sitting in the same booth at his friend’s club where Ilarion had tossed the insulting contract at him when the phone call came in. The number was unregistered on his phone, but--so was Varya's, so he didn't try to hide his disappointment when he answered the phone and heard Ilarion's voice.

“You’re not the one I wanted,” Roman said without much ceremony, balancing his phone between his shoulder and ear as he reached for a drink from a passing tray. He was certain he could _hear_ Ilarion try to withhold a sigh--and fail. “I hope you know I had every intention of giving Bianchi to you. It was your sister who killed him.”

“I’m aware.” Ilarion sounded like he was rubbing his hand over his face. “Alfonzo Bianchi is the least of my worries right now.”

Roman scoffed. The bass thrummed under his feet. “Well, good, because Varya blew his fucking face off.”

“Roman, I know you’re upset--”

“What _remarkable_ perception you have.”

Ilarion made a noise of frustration. It was muffled by their phone call a little, but as Roman paced outside of his booth, and drank, and then sat inside of it and then paced some more, he still found himself waiting. He could have just ended the phone call, if he really wanted to, but a part of him lingered on the conversation.

_Just say it. Say she misses me. She does, I know that she does._

“You are mad because she lied.”

“Not--in _general_ , you fuck, just that…”

The silence stretched between them for a moment. Ilarion sighed again, and it was different this time; it was the closest feeling to something more than neutral Roman thought he’d ever experienced with Ilarion. _Sympathy_. The words came out before Roman could stop them: “I brought it up, you know. That Zsasz had heard something--and she just kept it up. The whole façade. Like it was nothing.”

“Measures had to be taken,” Ilarion replied firmly. “The things that my father is-- _was_ capable of doing--” He took in a breath, as though unsure of what tense to speak of his father in. “She does not talk about it to me, even, and we are guilty of the same crime, twins now in that, too. And I don’t ask her to talk about it, and you should not either; the only things we should be concerned about are the before and the after, and the in-between belongs to the dead.”

Roman’s drink soured in his stomach. He hated getting _lectured_ by Ilarion; it was just one more reminder that the twins had something unknowable to him, no longer bound just by the mother they shared but a murder, too. He ran his tongue along his teeth and remained silent. He wanted Ilarion to stop talking, but everytime he opened his mouth to say it the words stayed lodged in his throat

“You cannot say anything,” Ilarion continued after a moment, disappointingly void of any news of Varya’s pining for him and, as well, not abiding by Roman’s silent wish for him to shut the fuck up. “About the things that--”

_‘Because he is dead. Because I killed him, so I do not know how he could be speaking about my father.’_

Well, there was the matter of _that_. The big bad boogeyman, who actually wasn’t that big and bad after all - buried by his own legacy. It just went show that blood ties didn’t mean a fucking thing. He would never say anything about it, _probably_ , not while there was still a chance of things working out in his favor.

He bit out a bitter laugh, taking another swig of his drink, and sucked his teeth. “You sound very comfortable telling me what I can and can’t do, Ilarion. Is that just an Astakhov thing?”

“It will be just as dangerous for you if he is alive, and he finds you.”

It was a little sickening, that Ilarion thought Roman was that stupid to try and blackmail them when he was just as entrenched as they were. Not to mention--as though it didn’t benefit Roman greatly for Nikita Astakhov to be dead, his empire ripe for the taking. “So is he fucking dead or not, Ilarion?”

 _Would be nice if he was,_ Roman thought absently. _Less work for me._

Another beat of silence stretched. He found himself tiring, very quickly, of the way these twins like to leave him on a fucking cliffhanger. _Tune in next time for: The Next Thing They’ll Lie About!_

“I do not know anymore,” Ilarion said after a moment. “But _if_ he is alive…”

“How the fuck do you kill your own father and not make sure he’s actually dead?” Roman hissed, taking his second - third? - drink of the evening. “You know, for someone who likes to act like the big man on campus, this would be a pretty royal fuck-up, even for _you_.”

This time, Ilarion’s silence was more satisfying. It rang with tension, as though Ilarion were grasping for control. The Astakhov was clearly keeping himself in check, because Roman had information that he didn’t want to get out; what a shame that their relationship dynamic had tipped in his favor like this. Roman would have much just preferred Ilarion concede to him willingly.

“Goodnight, Ilarion,” he sighed. He heard the Astakhov's voice in the phone saying something - what it was, he couldn’t have cared less - before he hit the end button on his phone screen and finished off the entire contents of his fresh drink.

He would have accepted any kind of in-person apology, really. He wasn’t picky. If she just said she was _sorry_...

_Nikita Astakhov is dead._

It did feel like it was too good to be true. The mystery of who it was that was spreading the truth to the likes of Alfonzo Bianchi, and sending hits after the twins (or at least one of them) still hung over him, but Roman couldn’t bring himself to think too much about it. After all, it was of no concern to _him_ anymore, was it?

_But it is. If Nikita Astakhov is alive, he would have every reason to try and fuck you over._

“He wouldn’t,” Roman muttered to himself. “He wouldn’t fucking dare. Not even him.”

He slid out of the booth and stalked downstairs to find Zsasz, indicating to him wordlessly that he was ready to leave. The club held nothing of interest for him, anyway; all it reminded him of was his last unpleasant meeting with the one of the twins that he wasn’t interested in fucking.

The whole drive home, he kept trying to parse through this overload of information he’d been given, now with more questions than he had answers. So many questions that kept spilling and rolling in his mind, like trying to catch a bag of marbles that continued tipping over in your hand.

 _Nikita Astakhov is dead. Why, though?_ Because of the way he’d treated the twins, Varya had said that - right? Because of his cruelty?

_But why keep it a secret?_

_Why lie?_

Perhaps things worked differently for the Astakhov mob; perhaps the loyalties ran deeper for the people in charge, and killing wasn’t an assertion of a right to rule, but a betrayal.

Roman was so deep in his thoughts that he barely noticed the car ride passing by. He was vaguely aware of Zsasz glancing back at him in the rearview mirror, monitoring him, but there was no energy left in him to get mad anymore. Not for right now, anyway--the alcohol in his system was slowing him down. By the time they were standing in the elevator to the loft, all Roman could think about was getting into his bed.

His cold, empty bed.

The doors to the elevator slid open. Zsasz waited for Roman to walk first, and he was so concentrated on puzzling out more information that he barely considered looking up from the tile on the floor; when he heard Zsasz’s footsteps falter and stop, he looked back at the blonde.

“What is it?” he asked, turning his head to follow the man’s gaze towards the dining table in the center of the loft.

It was Varya. She looked just as at home as she had before. She sat in the chair that Roman usually did; languid as a junglecat, a tangle of sunkissed limbs and long, dark hair.

Roman was certain that the next time he’d see her, the fire from their argument would be reignited--and that, certainly, this unannounced arrival in his home would be the catalyst. She had lied to him, after all, by omission. She had decided not to let him in on the true nature of her business, and that was the kind of thing that would not be tolerated by Roman. He needed absolute devotion from any partner, business or otherwise.

“Hello, lover,” Varya said. The angry fire remained an ember in his chest, smouldering, bucking against the term of endearment she favored with him.

“Kitten,” he replied evenly. He eyed her warily, as though at any moment he expected her to make another attempt at battery in the first against his ego. Roman made his way to the table slowly, his gaze drawn to what sat in front of Varya on the table--a chocolate cake. “I see you made liberal use of your key. What is this?” It looked perfectly crafted, and fresh, like she had just picked it up that evening.

Varya stood from the chair and smoothed her hand down the sides of the pencil skirt she wore, her gauzy blouse tucked into the top of it neatly. _Treacherous,_ Roman thought crossly, keeping his face stony. She knew he loved her in a tight skirt.

“A peace offering,” she said. She didn’t seem bothered when Roman scoffed a little, standing on the other side of the table from her now. “I don’t like fighting with you.”

“Seemed like you enjoyed that last one a lot,” he muttered, feeling more than a little petulant and not caring in the least about it. He swiped a bit of frosting off of the side of the cake with his finger and sucked it off. It was good. He hated it.

“You’re not pleased,” Varya sighed, coming around the table to sidle up to him. It was less a question than a statement; she had the same polished perception as her brother, he thought.

“I think it’s going to take a little more than a trip to the bakery to make up for last week. _You_ -” He narrowed his eyes at her when her fingers toyed with a button on his shirt. “-were exceptionally ungrateful, Miss Astakhova, and an absolute handful. I’m not completely unreasonable, though, if you’ve come here to apologize.”

“Are you really so mad at me?” she asked, gazing at him with those doe-eyes. “Over a lover’s spat?”

His mouth pressed into a thin line. The issue was both that the lie had occurred and that the gravity of it was so great, and he would not be so easily won by her charms this time, Roman was determined: he’d had a week to break out of her cute little spell, and now he was stronger than ever before against her wiles. The way she had spoken to him-- _demanding_ he prove himself to her--could not be tolerated, in any fashion. No amount of eyelash batting, or skimming touches along his chest, or lips on-

Where Varya’s hand had once been on his chest, it slid down to his wrist and brought his hand up to her mouth. Roman was so deep in his thoughts about why he would not be weak to her that he didn’t have the foresight to stop her. With incredible ease, she sucked the dredges of the frosting off of his index finger, leveling him with a dark gaze.

Every alarm bell in Roman’s head went off. _Abort,_ he thought, feeling very far away from himself; watching her cupid’s bow lips, hot and slick and reminding him of what else they were good at, _abort abort. Code red._ Her teeth grazed his knuckle, just lightly enough to raise goosebumps. It was ludicrous. It shouldn’t have been as sexy as it was, but it was, and entirely indulgent. The way that she released his finger with a soft, wet noise lit his spine on fire.

“Are you going to stay mad at me forever?” she asked softly, so close to him now, cradling his hand to her cheek. She was doing it again - trapping him back in her little realm, her voice low and languid. “I can make it up to you however you’d like, _daddy_.”

He stifled a groan. Heat pooled in the pit of his stomach, and he set his jaw hard against it. She had never called him that outside of the bedroom. He needed to tell her to stop and behave, because this was not how she was supposed to apologize. 

“Unfair,” is what he said instead, his voice tight. Varya laughed, kissing his palm now.

“Oh, Romy,” she murmured. Her eyes narrowed. “I would never play fair for you.”

“You lied to me,” Roman tried again, wanting desperately not to be swayed by her sweet words (but it did fill him with want, hearing her say that; knowing the lengths she would go to keep him for herself). As instinctively as breathing, and without requiring Roman’s own conscious permission, his hand was trailing along her jaw, grabbing a fistful of her dark hair, soft as silk.

“To protect myself, and Ilya, and you,” Varya agreed. Her voice belied the want he knew lingered just below the surface. “But I won’t anymore, if you ask me to.”

"You shot Bianchi in the face," he reiterated, going through the list of her criminal offenses against his ego.

Varya's gaze was even when she regarded him. "I deserved him more than Ilya. Besides, you're not really angry on my brother's behalf, are you? I’ll tell you everything, and you’ll always know everything until the end of it."

It was too sweet of a deal, Roman thought suspiciously, to know _everything_ ; but it was hard to keep his anger straight and fan the flames when everything in his body was itching for her.

“Absolute honesty?” he prompted. He felt the threads of her hair knitting around his knuckles when he tightened his fingers. Her lashes fluttered, lovely and soft. His other hand came to her face now, the pad of his thumb dragging along her plush lower lip. She hadn’t said the words _I’m sorry_ yet, not quite out of her mouth, but they lingered there; he could tell. He knew his girl. “You’re going to tell me everything, nothing left to the wayside?”

She said, “If you ask.”

His eyes narrowed. The feel of her lips saying the words against his thumb filled him with desire for the same show that she had just put on moments ago. “I do.”

Varya closed her eyes; it was like she was taking on the weight of her promise. “One more thing first,” she said. Roman heaved a sigh. 

“It’s never just the one thing with you Astakhovs, is it?”

She rolled her eyes and disentangled herself from him, much to his displeasure; as clear as his mind felt away from her, he now craved her closeness all over again. She reached into her bag, perched on one of the nearby chairs, and pulled out a stack of papers. They were not quite so thick, and when she held them out to him he recognized a cover that was not dissimilar to the treasonous piece of garbage Ilarion had given him. He took them from her even as the suspicion rose in his throat. “And this is…?”

“A contract,” Varya replied. “A _new_ contract--for the guns. An exclusive one, too. ” She watched him for a moment, a little smile tugging at her lips. A sudden softness washed over her; she almost looked admonished, thoroughly repentant, even. She continued, “Ilya doesn’t clue me in on contracts; if I had known what he was going to give you that night that the two of you met, I--”

Roman’s gaze swept over the contract. It was everything he had wanted out of the contract in the first place. Now, the crime families of Gotham would have no choice but to be cowed to him. He thought of all of those smug fuckheads, even the ones that considered themselves a part of his little crime club. This would secure their loyalty.

This would ensure it.

A stinging sensation of victory bloomed in the cavity of his chest; he felt buoyant. There was still the matter of how utterly _comfortable_ she had been pushing his buttons, but--

He slid his arms around her and hoisted her up, grinning. “Clever,” he praised, the warmth lingering. “This is _just_ what I wanted. I don’t think I could have picked a better apology gift myself." He eyed her. "What happened to all of that bravado from before, hm?”

She laughed, her legs hooked around his waist, and leaned down to kiss him while her arms looped comfortably along his neck and shoulders. “You show me in other ways that you want me,” she murmured, and kissed him again, slower this time. “I’m sorry we fought. Even if I do like when you get angry.”

“I know that you do,” he growled. “You’re just a little wicked, Varya Astakhova.”

This drew more laughter out of her, perhaps because of the scolding tone of his words or because she knew that it was true. “Just a little?”

He set her down on the table, scooting the cake out of the way and taking his time to kiss her now, feeling lighter. An apology, a contract, his girl--everything had worked out just the way that he wanted it to, and he’d barely had to do anything except get a little angry. Which, apparently, also worked in his favor.

Varya skimmed her hands along his chest, curling her fingers into his shirt and moaning softly into his kiss. “I think you like when I push your buttons, _just a little_ ,” she teased against his mouth, her teeth nicking his lower lip lightly. It was nowhere near the same amount of bite she’d done before. Roman’s stomach twisted pleasantly; he thought about the broiling pleasure he’d felt when she’d bitten hard enough to make him bleed--a tiny but forceful slap on the wrist.

“Only a little, but don’t push your luck,” he replied. He went to kiss her again when he heard a throat clear behind them.

“Boss,” Zsasz said, and Roman paused. “I’m gonna - if you’re good, I’m gonna go.” 

Roman had forgotten Zsasz was waiting for his dismissal. He waved his arm and turned back to Varya. “Yes, good--that’s fine, Zsasz, go.”

“Wait,” Varya said, pleasantly breathless. “He doesn’t have to.”

Both Roman and Zsasz stopped now, looking at her. Roman’s thumb skimmed over the hem of her skirt, turning his head to look back at Zsasz now with a more appraising glance than before. Varya and Zsasz got along, but--of course, Zsasz had never done anything that bridged more than politeness.

“I was cruel to our Zsasz,” Varya murmured, kissing Roman’s cheek, her fingers steadily undoing the buttons on his shirt. She fixed her gaze on Victor now in silent beckoning. “You can stay, if you want, darling,” she continued. Her voice was a soft croon, as though to appease Roman and Victor both. “To erase any hard feelings?”

A spark of jealousy flared in Roman’s chest, hot as the strike of an iron, but something else, too. He struggled to parse it out; there was something about _his_ Varya and _his_ Zsasz that made his head feel hot and fuzzy; heady, lush images flickering through his mind, and he thought, _well, it wouldn’t be the worst thing._

“Well?” he said after a moment, watching the blonde expectantly. “Are you?”

“Am I?” Zsasz repeated, awfully unsure. His gaze darted between them.

“Staying,” Varya reiterated. She reached out, her fingers trailing along Zsasz’s arm, as if to coax him. “With us.”

There seemed to be a strong moment of deliberation; whether it was because Victor wasn’t sure if he wanted to, or if he didn’t know he could refuse, Roman wasn’t sure. But then he cleared his throat and shook his head.

“No, I - no,” he managed. “Thank you. I’m - no thank you.”

Varya clicked her tongue. “What a shame,” she murmured. “I guess I will have to find another way to show you how grateful I am.”

“Another time, then,” Roman added, watching Zsasz with a curious gaze. He tilted Varya’s chin back to him; now that the matter of Zsasz’s involvement was settled, one way or another, he was tired of waiting. He had, after all, waited _very_ patiently a _whole week_ for her to come around with her apology.

“You could give me a little more notice next time,” he rumbled as he kissed her, only vaguely aware of Zsasz hurriedly taking his leave. He trailed his mouth down her neck, finding the spot that he knew she was the most sensitive and sucking. Her breath hitched and she dug her nails into his shoulder a little.

“Have the two of you never...” She was forcing her voice lighter, trying to hide that it was riddled with desire while Roman pushed her skirt up, bunching it around her hips. “Shared a lover?”

Roman laughed, low and heady, while her fingers made swift work of his belt and discard it on the floor. “There’s never been such a shortage of available lovers that we’ve had to share, no,” he replied between kissing her. His hand slid between them, and he hooked a finger around the slip of underwear she wore and pulled, groaning into her neck. “God, I fucking missed you--” _your smell how you taste having you here with me where you belong,_ “--like this.”

“Roman,” she murmured dreamily, raking her fingers through his hair and arching up against him, eager for his touch. He captured her lips in another deep, heady kiss; one hand gripped her hip, the other grabbing a handful of her hair. Varya’s hands were insatiable, and skimmed along the slope of his chest downward to get the most annoying clothing of his out of the way.

“The cake would have been a better idea if I got to eat it off of you,” he murmured into her hair. He exhaled sharply when she took him in her hands, the warmth of her laughter fanning across his skin. She shifted in her position, just a little, so that he was pressed up against her.

Varya made a soft, wanton noise, rocking against him a little, impatient. “Better saved for your birthday, then?” she breathed out, biting her lip when Roman’s hand on her hip stilled her movement.

“Then what would we do for your birthday? You eat the cake off of me? Sounds like something also better spent on my birthday.”

_“Roman.”_

Her voice was tightly-coiled with agitated desire, as though the discussion of the nature of the cake was wearing thin on her and she had other pressing matters. So did he, of course; he restrained the incessant urge to press into her, to feel that slick heat around him, in favor of holding her in place.

“Did you want something?” He ran his lips along the slope of her neck. The indulgent little moan that came out of her was almost too much for him to stand; he loved when she was like this, needy and wanting and all of it for him and him alone. “You know the rules.”

“Please,” she murmured breathlessly, tilting her face so that their noses brushed. He released some of the strength of his grip on her hip and felt the way she took that inch for herself, lips parting prettily with desire. Where her hands now held on to his shoulders, her nails bit into his skin; the tiny pin-pricks of pain only heightened the heat winding down his spine. “Please, Roman, I want--”

Roman clicked his tongue and pressed into her, just a little more, just until she almost looked relieved and then he stopped; the frustrated sound that came out of her was almost as good as the others.

“Please, you _what_?”

He was aware of the unsteadiness in his own voice, and he was sure that Varya was, too. Each time she squirmed against him, sighing and whimpering, was another strike against his self-control.

“Please, I need you,” Varya managed out finally. She was breathless with want; as soon as the words left her mouth, Roman rocked his hips against hers, just a little, just enough to make her whimper, a little reward for reining in that mouth of hers.

“God, do you--” He grabbed a fistful of her skirt, yanking it up higher, and pulled her leg around his hip. “--have any idea how fucking good you sound like this? So fucking good, just for me.”

She kissed him then, hot and impatient, her teeth catching his lip and her tongue gliding against his. She said, “Then fuck me, Roman, _please_ ,” and he pressed into her, unable to resist the the inherent urge to do so; Roman bit out a swear, the slick, tight heat of her grinding any coherent train of thought to a halt. Varya’s breath caught in their kiss when he did, but she swayed against him, urging him wordlessly to pick a better speed.

He did. It was hard not to, when she was twisting against him, pleading with him against his mouth for it, her fingers gripping his hair and pulling when he would brush the spot where she wanted him the most. Roman loved how vocal Varya was--there was no shortage of cues from her when she liked something, panting, _yes, please, Roman, just like that,_ begging him for more while the dining table shifted underneath the pressure of his movements.

Roman felt a dizzying surge of pleasure flood over him. He slowed his movements to stave it off, breathless, laying a trail of kisses along the curve of her throat. A little noise akin to disappointment or desire or both escaped Varya. She rolled her hips up against him and he hissed.

“Wicked thing.” His voice was hoarse. “Don’t you want me to take my time?”

“Hardly,” she replied. The pressure of her heel against his lower back pushed him back to her, and he swore again. “There will be--mmn, plenty of time for you to indulge, _later_.”

“You’re just full of demands, I see.”

She laughed, and Roman captured her mouth in a kiss as he fucked her. He felt hazy; the way she sighed his name against his ear, moaning and coaxing him-- _”I want it so bad, Romy, please”_ \-- he thought there was no way he was going to last against her.

“Varya,” he panted, digging his fingers into her hip. “Fuck--”

 _Stop talking like that,_ he thought, because every time she said something like that, the slick, desirous nature of his body spiked higher and higher; but everything else in his body was demanding that it continue. 

He felt the way her body stilled, her face buried into the crook of his neck as she tightened around him, moaning. She murmured his name over and over again, like a prayer as her body gave her away to a more potent kind of bliss.

It was too much; he yanked her against him, hard and flush, and his mouth sought hers, clumsy with haste, as the white-hot pleasure washed over him. He rode out his finish, disentangling his fingers from her hair to pull her hips up against him and mouth a dark spot at the junction of her neck and shoulder.

 _Mine._ The word rolled hazily around in his brain. _Mine, mine, mine._

Varya leaned back, her palms laid flat on the table, her gaze sweeping over him. The delicious flush in her cheeks remained, her blouse rumpled and haphazard, the skirt wadded up around her hips. Her teeth worried her lower lip for a moment.

“You missed me,” she said, grinning. He closed the distance between them and kissed her again, both hating and adoring that smug look on her face. He hummed into their lip-lock.

“And you love me,” Roman replied. “You said so, remember? ‘I love you both’, the other day, when--”

“I remember.” She paused, carding her fingers through his hair. Varya pressed a trail of kisses from his temple to his jaw, and then, without confirming nor denying whether she had meant what she said all those days ago, she continued, “You can ask me whatever you want about my father, or anything, now that we’re all made up.”

Roman laughed. He straightened up and scooped her up into his arms, keeping her pressed flush against him.

“Oh, are we all made up?” he purred. “I had a few other things in mind before we ruin the mood with your past transgressions.”

“You _are_ cruel,” Varya murmured dreamily, not a hint of hostility in her voice. “But I wouldn’t have you any less.”


	13. black is the color

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang hatches a plan; or rather, Varya hatches a plan and drags everyone along with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! This chapter's a bit of a doozy. I apologize if it's a drag - there was a bit of ground to cover in all of that. But, we should be back to our regular amount of brevity in the next chapter or so!
> 
> And before you say, "This trope is widely overused"--I know, and I love it, SO. HERE WE ARE.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy! Thank you again to everyone who reads, comments, kudos-es; it's always the exact inspiration I need to keep going.

Roman did not expect to ever find himself sitting at a dinner table in one of Gotham’s best restaurants across from Ilarion Astakhov.

Or at the very least, he didn’t expect to feel very _good_ about it. When they had first met, Roman had intended it to be strictly business. A quick, in-and-out business deal that would not only shut off all weapon supply chains to every other crime family in Gotham, but also give Roman singular access to the one remaining source the good people could get their guns and ammo from. That was the strength the Astakhov mobster had promised him, that first night they spoke; that was the influence he swore that he carried.

Of course, things had changed--a bit--but not so much that Roman missed the irony of finding himself at a table, once again with Ilarion, preparing to deal with a different bit of nasty business.

The entire night before had been spent plying Varya with questions. Watching her unwind the tangled mess of her memories was fascinating; she would stop often to decipher her own thoughts, the recalling of her father’s behavior halting and uneasy. Laying in bed, she drew circles on the palm of his hand as she detailed the casual comfort her father took in violence, both with his children and his wife, pinning those moments in time that she remembered like the wings of a butterfly in a collection. 

Nikita Astakhov’s descent into instability was not a slow one; Varya described it as sudden and unforgiving, a striking collision with madness that only increased in frequency and fervence, eventually ending in their mother’s death by his hands when the twins were only eight years old. She didn’t go into too much detail with that one, and Roman didn’t feel the need to press--it seemed to him that pushing for too many details would clam her up. Besides, he remembered hearing about it; he didn’t need her to explain the part her father played in the strangling of her mother.

In stark contrast, it was with clinical precision that she described her father’s murder.

 _‘Rat poison_ ,’ she’d said, quite casually, her gaze flickering from a spot on the ceiling to Roman’s gaze, _‘is a very gruesome way for someone to die.’_

She had spoken with the same down-to-your-marrows chilliness as when she had asked Zsasz to cut off Abarca’s hand. There it was, he’d thought: the monster, simmering just below the surface of her mask. He didn’t need to peel it away anymore to know what lay beneath.

After that, she’d rolled on top of him, dark hair sliding across her shoulders like a curtain. This, too, he now knew was another act of defiance against a man who claimed the length of her hair was meant for men to wad in their fists. She’d said, _‘I am too tired to talk about it anymore; you can ask me more questions another day.’_

Now, sitting across from Ilarion, Roman thought that in the last month or so, he had never quite felt so light. He had everything he wanted. Well-- _most_ everything, anyway.

Ilarion was still here, after all.

“So,” Ilarion said, settling back against his chair, clearing his throat, “you have made up with each other, then.”

 _These Astakhovs,_ Roman thought with a little exasperation. _All statement, no question. Where’s the fun in that?_

He glanced around the restaurant. Varya had not shown up yet; she had insisted on meeting them separately, saying that she wanted to inspect Alfonzo Bianchi’s companion by herself. She would know what to look for, is what she’d said, so he’d loaned Zsasz out to her and agreed to meet her promptly at seven.

Ilarion had been early, of course, and Varya nowhere to be seen, as the clock ticked past seven-fifteen.

“There were amends, yes,” Roman replied after a moment, shifting in his seat. “Does your sister make a habit of being late?”

Ilarion’s smile was wry. “Oh, Roman,” he sighed, in a way that was _strikingly_ similar to the way Varya did it, “you’re new to this; I am always forgetting.” He brought his whiskey to his lips and downed the whole thing, grimacing. “Everyone runs on Varya’s time, not the other way around.”

Roman narrowed his eyes at him, but bit back the words he wanted to say. _That won’t do_ , he thought. She wasn’t careless, or thoughtless, not his girl. Not for _him_ , anyway. She could make Ilarion wait around all day, but--

“Ilya, you are not speaking ill of me, are you?”

Varya’s voice was lilting; she had come up behind Roman, resting her hands on his shoulders and leaning down to press a kiss to his cheek. The warm, floral scent of her perfume washed over him; as she settled into the seat between Ilya and Roman, he swept his gaze over her. Her mass of thick, dark hair had been pinned up and out of her face. She was all pearl-drop earrings and rustling silk, the smooth expanses of her skin beckoning his attention.

She did it on purpose, he supposed, his gaze following the elegant slope of her neck; she kept them waiting, and showed up like _this_ , to mitigate the damage.

“I would not dare,” Ilya rumbled. He was clearly at peace with her tardiness, which was a feeling that Roman could not relate with.

So he said, “You’re late.” He was forcing his voice to be light even as he did everything in his power not to let go of his irritation in the wake of her wiles. 

Varya’s sooty gaze landed on him. She pouted, and then leaned over and brushed their noses together. “I’m sorry, darling,” she purred, and she gave his hand a little squeeze. “It won’t happen again.” And then she kissed him, sweet and slow, just the way that he liked; he felt, for a moment, satisfied that she meant it.

But then she settled back into her seat again, and Roman’s gaze met Ilarion’s from across the table. The brunette’s eyebrow arched upward for just a moment: it was a silent taunt. _You see?_ It said. _You’re already on her leash._

“Well, are you going to share with us the details of our friend?” Roman prompted, ignoring Ilya’s maddening half-way grin. Varya made a small noise around her wine at his question.

“Yes! Of course,” she replied, setting her glass down after she swallowed. “He’s very dead.”

“Well, I did get a good look at his face after you’d disfigured him, so I knew that already,” Roman replied dryly.

She gave him a little smile. “He is also certainly one of father’s.”

Ilarion was lighting himself a cigarette when she spoke, pausing to stare at his sister. Roman waited too, but not for more information--to see any lingering violence in her gaze, any tightness in her expression. Anything that she had harbored from their conversation the night before was now buried deep down, swimming in her darkest waters.

“And?” he prompted. “You know this because you’ve suddenly developed clairvoyance?”

“No, don’t be silly,” Varya laughed, setting her glass down. “He has a tattoo on his chest. My father liked to--”

“Brand his things,” Ilarion interrupted. His words were hard and cold, leagues away from the lightness in Varya’s tone. “What was it?”

She smoothed her hands along her lap, smiling thinly. “A dragon,” she said, and before Ilarion could say anything she turned to Roman. “For my father, a dragon is like… His loan shark. Someone sent to retrieve property that belongs to him.”

“Oh,” Roman said, feeling the distaste welling up in his voice, “so your dad is alive.”

“No.” Varya’s brows furrowed and her voice came out assertively. “I _watched_ my father die. It’s not him, but--someone still loyal to him, still upholding what my father considered important. It has to be. Right, Ilya?”

Roman didn’t think he had ever seen Varya sound so uncertain while trying very much to come across the opposite. She was watching her brother in earnest, waiting for him to agree, but he didn’t. Ilarion couldn’t say the same; he had looked away when their father coughed up his blood on the floor, while Varya had watched on. _Venomous_. 

Ilarion took in a deep breath and closed his eyes, finally lighting his cigarette. The spice of it lingered in the air between the three of them.

“I do not know,” he replied after a moment. “What you told me Bianchi said--I cannot think that anyone else knew that he used to say that to us.”

_He’s coming for you, and he knows your name._

Roman’s mouth pressed into a grimace. Well, a man didn’t necessarily just survive from ingesting rat poison; it made you bleed; from your nose, from your gums, and as Varya described it, it didn’t stop. The level of anticoagulant in most rat poisons ensured that the blood clotted so slowly that it wouldn’t stop in time for someone to be saved _._ Not to mention the tiny, _tiny_ fiberglass shards that shredded your intestines as it made its way through your system--

“What about the lookalike?” he asked, thinking of the polaroid photo on Varya’s nightstand and trying to think less of how Nikita Astakhov had looked when he died. “Wasn’t he devastated when your father died?”

Ilarion turned his gaze questioningly to Varya. She looked troubled. “Artyem,” she said, looking back at her brother now. “I don’t remember seeing him, not even at the funeral.”

“You didn’t think that was odd?” Roman asked, frowning.

“Yes,” Ilarion admitted. He paused, and now his frown mimicked Roman’s. “But our father had just died--”

“Well, now, let’s call it what it is.” He spoke archly, brows lifting a little. “You had just _murdered_ your father.”

Varya sighed, “Darling.”

“I just want to make sure we’re keeping the details straight.”

“We had just poisoned our father to death,” Ilarion snipped tersely, sitting forward in his chair, “and so we had other _pressing matters_ to consider at the time that his body was being lowered into the ground.”

Roman exhaled. He tried to focus; this was the last obstacle standing between himself and absolute freedom. This was no longer an issue that only belonged to the twins; it was now a Roman Sionis issue, which meant it was going to get solved. Quickly.

“The only option is to lure them out, somehow,” Roman said after a moment, feeling quite exasperated with this lack of solution. “Let’s say your father is alive--” Varya’s eyes narrowed, and he held up his hands, to calm her like he would an agitated stray; he reached out and tucked a stray curl behind her ear, but she did not seem appeased.

“He’s not.” Her voice was hard: the conviction was more for herself than him, and Roman opted not to point that out, out of the kindness of his heart (and the innate desire not to experience, once again, what it was like to have her on the opposite end of an argument). 

“ _Theoretically_ ,” Roman amended, unconvinced only because of Ilarion’s uncertainty, “let’s say your father is alive _theoretically_ \--or someone out there, who is incredibly loyal to your father, is out there to avenge him. What would draw them out? What would really piss them off, or--get under their skin?”

Silence settled over them. He watched Varya pressing the nail of her thumb into her lower lip, indenting a crescent there over and over.

“Ilya,” Varya said suddenly, her face lighting up. “ _Tye pomnish kogda otets kogdata govirl o tom chto tye zhenil'sa_?”

Roman sighed. “English, pet.”

Her gaze darted over to him apologetically. “All the time, father would talk about--how it was Ilya’s responsibility to carry on the Astakhov legacy. His only son, and technically ‘first born’. Get married, have a son of his own to continue on the name.”

Roman muttered, “Seems a little outdated, I’d think.”

“I do not see how this can draw him out,” Ilarion said, frowning; Varya was all smiles.

“You get _engaged_ , Ilya.” Her voice was warm. “Very publicly, you get engaged.”

“Oh, perfect,” Roman said, not bothering to hide his dry tone. “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”

Varya shot him a look. “To a _man._ ”

Ilarion’s face had gone stony. He seemed even less pleased now; whether that was because he didn’t feel like discussing his sexual preferences in front of Roman, or because he thought it was a bad idea, Roman couldn’t tell. He arched a brow at Varya, who had turned her gaze from her brother back to him expectantly.

“Well, not to _me_ ,” he scoffed. “Everyone already knows _we’re_ together.”

“No.” Varya made a frustrated noise. “Not to _you_ , of course not. Someone who thinks like my father, and is looking to avenge him, would be--if they’re really looking to get back at my father, they would be looking to get rid of me and rope Ilya back in.”

“Varya,” Ilarion said, his voice low and tired when he spoke, as though they had run this particular conversation several times. Roman was certain they had.

“Well, it is true, isn’t it?” There was an edge to her earnesty now, a sharpness in the way her eyes watched him. She was daring him to tell her she was wrong, Roman could tell. He smoothed his hand along her shoulder a little, but it seemed to mean nothing. “Father would have always preferred to have one child, his son--”

“Varya, enough.”

“--and I was the one poisoning you against him; he hated me for it and he wanted you and only you, Ilya--”

“ _Varvara_.”

“--and that’s why you couldn’t look at him when he died.”

It truly was a marvel, Roman thought: Varya could not exist without unraveling someone. If it wasn’t Roman, it was Ilarion, or whoever was in her proximity. He thought back to the way they had argued before, the way Ilarion had spit out the words _you look like a whore_ , words that were surely a reflection of their father. And now Varya was goading Ilarion to tell her that she was wrong, the same way she had goaded Roman to hit her when they fought.

Watching them together like this, Roman was now painfully and excruciatingly aware that this was what they had always done to each other. It had become a comfort to her, and to Ilarion, to pull a thread until the whole sweater came undone.

And it _was_ undone, the way Ilarion was looking at her, his jaw tight and eyes dark. The sharpness in her expression faded and she leaned towards him, drifting out of Roman’s touch to do so, just out of reach of his hand. That small move made him feel as though he was swept away from her.

“Ilya, you know he would be furious,” she murmured, taking his hand in hers. She wove their fingers together, all softness and loveliness again. “Anyone supporting him would be furious on his behalf, on this spitting of his grave, and that _has_ to be who it is. They would--flock to kill you in honor of his _memory_ , even if there was no prize at the end, if you were going to end the Astakhov legacy like that.”

“But there is a prize,” Roman added thoughtfully. “The business.”

_A real prize._

“Yes,” Varya admitted after a moment. “I have to think they are motivated by other things, too. It would only strengthen their claim to say that Nikita Astakhov’s son was disgracing his memory.”

Ilarion rubbed his eyes, taking a long and slow drag of his cigarette. It was in that moment that Roman felt a strong and violent kinship to the man: they were, all of a sudden, both men who suffered for Varya’s loveliness.

“If I do this--” Ilarion gestured with his hand. “This-- _nothing_ plan, what then?”

“We would have to wait,” Roman replied after a moment. “If they would come after you for something like that, we would have to wait until they try.”

“Alexei would never let that happen,” she added. She sounded reinvigorated with Roman’s input. “But they _would_ try, you know that.”

“Just to be clear,” Roman began, resting his elbows on the table, “your father had such a--a _legacy_ complex that the people who support him still would come out of hiding to kill your brother for getting engaged to a man?”

“Yes.” Varya spoke plainly. “Is it really so surprising, after what you know, that my father would have such an archaic notion of marriage?”

He supposed not; someone could have told him that Papa Astakhov liked to participate in ritualistic sacrifice and he probably would have thought it was par for the course. You didn’t choke out your wife until the life fled from her body and _not_ have an incredibly high threshold for violence, after all.

“We’ll have to pick someone who’s really insulting,” she continued, casually. “You know, someone that father would hate even if _I_ was with them.”

“I have not said I will do it.”

Varya completely ignored Ilarion’s statement, getting the attention of the waiter to order herself another glass of wine. “Darling,” she said, looking at Roman, “are you hungry?”

The statement was decisive. It said, _whether you say so or not, you will_. He paused, looking at Ilarion and then back to his paramour. “Starving.”

“Then we will order.”

It went like that for a little while, Varya mulling over the menu while Roman ordered, then selecting something for herself, and Ilarion waving the waiter away when he turned to him expectantly. Instead, the brunette scooted her chair so that she was facing him, fixing Varya with his gaze.

“Varvara.” Ilarion waited until she looked at him, _really_ looked at him, bundling all of her energy into a single stopped movement. “This is not a game I want to play lightly, regardless of who is on the other end.”

“But it _is_ a game,” she told him softly, running her fingers along his jaw. “It always is, with them. And if you don’t play it, you’re going to lose.” She tsked her tongue, slid her chair back into place, and took a drink of her wine. Ilarion leveled his gaze on Roman, then.

“And you agree with her?” Ilarion asked him now. Roman shrugged.

“I think--” _if we can lure them out without putting your sister in the line of fire and you instead_ , “--there are very few more harmless ways to get them to come to you.”

Varya looked pleased. “You see, Ilya?” She gestured. “I will find someone suitable to play your fiance. All you have to do is--”

“Is to get engaged, and wait,” Roman finished for her, giving her knee a squeeze under the table. “Right, kitten?”

It was addictive, her approval; the way that she gazed at him when they found themselves on the same side, now with Ilarion on the other side, made his head light with the swoon of victory. She leaned over, her hand coming up to his face, and kissed him.

“That, my love,” she murmured, “is exactly right.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

“I have the _perfect_ idea.”

It was a few days later; Varya had spent those days at the villa with her brother, and now, to enjoy one of the last sunny days before the season moved into fall, she had settled herself out on the back patio--another area that Roman found himself unfamiliar with. Lush landscaping gave way to more natural looking gray stones, though the perimeter was fenced in with the same iron fencing as the driveway, obscured by privacy shrubs.

It was common knowledge that Roman did not often enjoy the time he spent at the twins’ home. He much preferred to just integrate Varya into his space, and for the most part, that _had_ been happening. But there was something nice about the way that the guards recognized him now; he could sweep through the halls of the villa whenever he wanted, for whatever reason he wanted.

As Roman made his way down the steps toward her, he took just a moment to admire her draped along the curve of a lounge chair, lowering her sunglasses to get a good look at _him_.

“I’m all ears, doll.”

“Well, aren’t you going to let me look at you a minute before we get down to business?” Varya chastised, sitting up. He came to sit on the lounger situated next to her own, and she reached out, trailing her fingers along the skin exposed by a few undone buttons on his shirt. “Look at this, you’ve done half of my work for me. What game are you playing, Romy?”

He had done it on purpose, because he knew that she liked him like that. “No game,” he replied innocently, catching her hand and bringing her fingers to his lips. “Just a little balmier out today than it has been.”

“Lucky me.” She pushed her glasses up and into her hair with her free hand, interlacing their fingers together. “I do have a solution to our problem.”

Roman hummed, thinking that, while he had come here for business, he would have much rather been doing something else first. Grazing his lips across the pulsepoint of Varya’s wrist, he glanced at her. “The problem being?”

Her gaze followed his movements. “The matter of who will be engaged to our Ilya.”

He tugged a little on her wrist; compliant, she departed her seat to climb into his lap. “‘Our’ Ilya, is it?”

“As much yours as he is mine,” Varya murmured. She looped her arms around his neck. “I’ve thought of the perfect match.”

Roman watched her. It wasn’t like Varya not to just come right out with it, but if there was something weighing on her--if there was something stopping her from being upfront--he couldn’t see it in her face. She leaned down and kissed him, combing her fingers through his hair.

“Are you going to tell me what this magnificent idea is?” he asked between kisses. “Or are you going to keep beating around the bush?”

Varya fingers skimmed the column of his throat, resting in the little dip just between his collarbones. She made a soft noise and kissed him again; her lips parted against his. “I’m not beating around the bush.”

Roman could see what she was doing. Rather, he _felt_ what she was doing--muddying his brain to soften the blow. He was aware of it, and indulged himself anyway.

“As much as I would like to spend the entire afternoon with you in my lap, dancing artfully around what you want to say--” He ran his fingers down the slope of her back, exposed by the swimsuit she’d been sunbathing in, enjoying the little bit of pressure she applied at his throat. “--tell me who you’ve picked, kitten.”

She was halfway in a kiss with him when she said, “Zsasz.”

Roman felt his stomach flip uncomfortably. It spoiled the play. He pulled back to look at her; her gaze was steady and unflinching. She was looking at him with that same open, trusting adoration that she had looked at him with that night at dinner with Ilya, when they were two sides of the same coin, more in tandem than she had been with her own twin brother. And he couldn’t even _enjoy_ it.

“Zsasz is _my_ guy,” he said after a heartbeat. The brunette cradled his jaw and swept her thumb across his lip; she pouted sympathetically.

“I know. But you have to admit, there is no greater insult one of my father’s fervid supporters could see than Ilarion being engaged to the _bodyguard_ of another mobster.”

“He’s my right-hand man,” Roman defended. “That’s--”

“Not good enough,” Varya replied flatly, her eyes narrowing. “Not for Ilarion Astakhov, as far as my father--and anyone who knew him, and supported him--would be concerned.”

Roman opened his mouth to protest again; he wanted to say, _no fucking way does Ilarion get to have Zsasz, even for a fake engagement, no fucking way_.

“Varya,” he began. She arched her brow at him. He tried again: “Kitten. There are - so many other men we could pick from--”

“I trust Zsasz,” she replied firmly. “There’s no way I would take an _absolute_ nobody. And risk the chance of them ruining it? Having no chemistry? Saying something that gave it away? No. There is one chance before they catch on, Roman.” She turned his face toward the house; through the window, Roman could see Ilarion and Zsasz, talking. Ilarion _smiling_ , genuinely. His jaw clenched.

“Once this little mess is cleaned up,” Varya murmured, turning him back to her, “then it will be the last time we have to deal with any of this. You won’t have to share anything anymore--”

 _Not the guns, not Varya, not Zsasz._ It was a nice thought; Roman wasn’t sure he wanted to invest in it.

“Roman.” Her voice was ghostlike against his skin, each touch soft. “Please?”

He heaved a sigh, trying to clear his thoughts; but each time he thought he got close to it, she invaded again, each tiny gesture overriding his clarity.

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to share Zsasz: not like _that_ , not with Ilarion Astakhov. He supposed that he wouldn’t have felt so fatalistic had he not seen the way that they had gotten along in those little glimpses of moments before.

“Is this how your brother felt?” Roman eyed her and tried not to sound as displeased as he was. He did poorly. “I’m starting to have some sympathy.”

“Oh, darling,” Varya sighed. “You have such a talent for the dramatics.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Tye pomnish kogda otets kogdata govirl o tom chto tye zhenil'sa - literal translation being "do you remember when father at one point spoke of you getting married"


	14. the blood you bleed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparations are under way; a crime is paid in full.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOOO BOY. This one's a big one. Initially, this chapter was going to be pretty much just filler to appease my distracted brain, but it ended up being filler with some plot. I want to give an extra special thank you to [Starcrier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrier) who cheered me on through this entire 6k chapter. Madilyn Moone, a character mentioned towards the end, is their INCREDIBLE creation and I'm obsessed with her; you should definitely check out their ongoing John Wick fic, [fearful symmetry](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18968881); it's *chef's kiss* so good.
> 
> At the risk of sounding like an idiot, this chapter marks a milestone I have never before reached: 50k words! The number of times I have tried to defeat NaNoWriMo is insurmountable. I have never been able to write a chaptered this fic so far, let alone feel like I had the momentum to keep it going. In short: thank you so much to everyone who has commented, and left kudos, or even bothered to read this. It really does mean the world to me. In particular, if I did not have [sithmarauder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithmarauder) to babble incoherently about these two fucking idiots all the time, I would have never gotten this far. And, of course, thank you so much to [GrimmNoir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GRIMM_Noir), who indulges me on a constant whim and helps me parse out my incredibly intangible thoughts.
> 
> Anyway--this chapter contains: swearing! Gore! Incredible amounts of fluff! Probably a very poorly written Zsasz, because I can barely manage to write Roman and Zsasz is a wacky person to write. Don't come storming in with the pitchforks, please; I'm just a humble girl wanting to write her dumpster fire fic at her leisure.

It was during these strange times that Roman found himself reflecting back on his life.

Generally speaking, if you had told him two months ago that he would be watching Varya Astakhova--one of the twin heirs to the Astakhov gun-running and blood-money fortune--take the hand of _his_ Victor Zsasz and say, in no uncertain terms, would he _not_ be faking his engagement to her brother (reminder: her twin), he would have probably spit his drink out in your face and then demanded someone cut your tongue out.

Or something else gruesome and elaborate, to really get the point across.

But here he was. He stood outside on the patio, pacing a little, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his slacks while through the big, French windows of the kitchen Varya gestured warmly at Zsasz. He could _hear_ her voice, if he really thought hard about it; all of the things that she had already said to him, she was now saying to Zsasz. Easy. Digestible. Sweet bites of the request-non-request (because it was really more of a demand, and there was no actual option to say no) peppered in between comments and sweet gestures.

Roman wondered, briefly, when his life had become a fucking rom-com. It was unreal. If he _really_ thought about it--if he let himself _really_ dwell on the events of the past month--he felt his stomach knot at the realization the Astakhovs had sucked him into their nightmare. Not only him, but now Zsasz, too.

 _I’m so close_ , he thought absently, turning his gaze away from the window and instead towards the bubbling pond. Its depths lingered dark in the dimming evening light; the bite of Fall, oncoming rapidly and without remorse, stung at his cheeks. With the sun retreating over distant mountains, and the dark falling across Gotham and its outskirts, he felt the dread. Fuck, it was cold. He was tired of standing around outside. 

_I'_ _m so close to everything I want being mine._

“Darling?”

Varya’s sweet, soothing voice worked him out of his reverie. Roman never felt startled, or abruptly yanked, when she interrupted his trains of thought; not like he did when other people shook him out of himself. It always felt like she had wormed her way into his mind and eased him out.

He turned his head to look at her. She slid her arms around his neck and leaned against him, a feline seeking his attention--and he could only give it to her, his sweet, wicked girl.

“Are you still upset?” she asked, burying her face into his neck against the bitter wind. “Say you aren’t upset.”

“If I didn’t know any better,” he sighed, skimming his fingers down her back, “it would sound like you’re making a _demand_ of me.”

She laughed and preened under his attention. When she pulled back to look at him, there was a sharp glint in her eye. “But you like it.”

Roman thought of the ease with which Varya conducted violence; how soft and light she was, until she was grabbing a fistful of your shirt and yanking you down to her five-feet-four-inches level, or until she was digging her nails into your jaw and asking you, _what game are you playing?_ , or until she was catching your lip with her teeth until you bled and your lip bruised with her mark.

 _Yes,_ his brain said as he watched the flutter of her lashes against her cheekbones. _I do like it_.

“Tell me this is temporary, and that when this is done, everything will be as it should be,” Roman replied, instead of the words that rolled around in his head. _Yes, I do like it,_ his brain insisted again, but he instead studied her face for any signs of treachery. Even now, even after all of this time, he couldn’t help but feel like--

Varya pressed a slow, meaningful kiss to his lips; she kissed him with all of the time in the world, indulgent and rich, her fingertips skirting the slope of his jaw.

He said, “Varya,” with the impatience of a man who was not _actually_ kissing his lover, but Roman’s body betrayed him. Returning her gestures was a force of habit now, innately wound into his bloodline. She laughed.

“Of course,” she answered. “Once our mystery hunter is dealt with, and we have secured ourselves a spot next to Ilarion without any other obstacles, everything will be back as it should be.”

“‘We’?” Roman reiterated the word with manicured skepticism. 

But Varya only looked back at him the same kind of warm, open expectancy. Her arms slid from around his neck and she rested back with her feet flat on the ground instead of tip-toed to reach his height. She had a resident softness about her now, in the dusklight.

“Well,” she began, with a little breath, “I think it’s only natural that if you are my partner romantically, you would also be my partner in business.” Her gaze flickered up to his, coy. “Don’t you?”

Roman’s stomach did a pleasant flip at her words. There would be no need for contracts; he could just get whatever the fuck he wanted. Whenever. If there was someone that he didn’t want to let have guns, _then he could do that._

“I wasn’t going to say,” he replied casually, “but now that you mention it…”

She laughed again; the sound elicited a wicked grin from him, and he felt lighter already.

A part of him was conscious of what she was doing. It was the same thing she likely did to Zsasz in there. Sweetness book-ending the unpleasantries; the most meticulous show, put on with the cold calculation of a practiced killer used to getting what she wanted.

But if it gave _Roman_ what he wanted, and he continued to get the things that he wanted from Varya, or her brother, or both of them and all of the rest of them too, then was he really getting taken advantage of?

“I am glad we can agree, then.” Varya circled her arms around his waist, tucked into his chest. As soon as he had her there, he could see the window again; inside, Ilarion was gesturing with his hands, saying something, and Victor had laughed. It was harmless. The engagement was the same--harmless. Nothing. It would be fine; everything was fine.

Right?

_Right._

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

Victor Zsasz was a hard man to catch off-guard. There were so very few things that surprised him anymore; working for Roman meant that you were exposed to the best of the best, and the worst of the worst, in equal, hefty amounts. 

This sort of dichotomy had never before been displayed so easily as when Roman had gotten himself tangled up with the Astakhov twins. Victor prided himself on being able to spot trouble from a mile away; Roman was his boss, his guy, and that meant that he was extremely protective. Always on the look-out for trouble. Always one step ahead of any potential treachery or betrayal that might try and rear its head. And if there was someone that Victor had expected treachery out of, it was _Varya._

At least, at first. The girl was slick: a well-oiled machine, a blank page on which someone had designed a Girl with all of their own blood-and-guts violence. And sweetness, too. When he’d first met her, he’d thought of the coral snakes he’d seen as a boy, the hot, wet heat of summer pressing on the back of his neck as he watched the colors writhe under the sun. _Venomous_ , another boy had said, poking the snake with a long stick, Cicadas humming loud in the air so that even in his lungs it vibrated. _Second most venomous snake, didn’t you know? You can tell because of their bright colors._

But she _was_ sweet, and before long, Victor found himself recognizing her as much a part of his day as the wallpaper of Roman’s loft, or the heady fatigue of the club in the early hours of the morning. She would go out of her way to visit with him. She delighted in his violence--asked for it, even, and did not shy away from it. The night she had visited with him at the bar, waiting for Roman, she had taken his hand in hers--soft, _so soft_ , he’d thought--and said, “Roman is so lucky to have you, Zsasz. You are a treasure.”

No one had ever referred to Victor as a treasure. It was always that _he_ was lucky to have Roman, and he thought that himself, too. Yes, Varya was drunk; he could tell that she was drunk when she’d said that. But inebriation did not erase the sincerity of her voice and when she gazed at him, he thought he was beginning to understand why Roman could not keep himself away.

At first, Victor thought that he could very easily dissect the twins as complete opposites. Varya smiled freely; she took enjoyment in small victories and graces, while Ilarion seemed unmoved by anything less than perfection. The few times in the beginning when they had crossed paths, Victor had been unnerved by the older twin’s gaze, which quite often fixed on him with the unerring confidence of an animal on the hunt.

Victor Zsasz was not prey: so he stared back.

It wasn’t until they were sitting in Roman’s loft, waiting for Roman to come out, that Victor started to see the truth of Ilarion’s nature. Roman complained about his arrogance, and more often, that he couldn’t pin down exactly what Ilarion was thinking. But he was easier to read than Varya, given time. They were not so different as he had thought. Ilarion was more reserved, certainly, but when Victor would think back on their conversation days later, he would find himself recognizing that there was no barrier that Ilarion had put up, in conversations, the way that Varya did.

 _‘You did an excellent job with Abarca’s hand. The cut was clean, and easy to patch up, once he was conscious again,’_ Ilarion had said, lingering just a little closer to Zsasz than the blonde had seen him do with others. His voice had a pleasant, rich timbre to it; it drew in, it coaxed, it beckoned. Victor had remained on the alert all the same.

 _‘Aren’t you angry?’_ he’d asked, his brows furrowing. Roman was making a show with Varya, in the way that Roman liked to do; spitefully. They both knew what the two were doing that was taking so long. But Ilarion had smiled quite dryly at him and shrugged his shoulders.

 _‘I should be,’_ Ilarion said after a moment, _‘but I barely feel anything, anymore.’_

After that, Ilarion did not linger too close to Zsasz very much; he could not help but feel like Ilarion had said more than he wanted to.

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

“Yes,” Victor said.

It was only one word, but the weight of it got stuck in his throat. There are several other words that he wanted to say; he wanted to add, _if it’s really what Roman wants me to do_ , but he knew that they wouldn’t have mattered. If it was really what Roman wanted him to do, it would be Roman in here, making the demand.

Because that’s what it was, even as Varya plied him with sweetness, as she was so good at doing--a demand. There was no room to say no.

Victor glanced out the window, over Ilarion’s shoulder. Roman was pacing back and forth. He looked unhappy. Just before Varya had come in, Ilarion and Victor had been talking about something stupid and empty and _nice,_ but now he couldn’t remember what that conversation had been about, anymore.

“Oh, Zsasz,” Varya sighed happily, hugging him as though she had expected him to actually refuse her. “You _are_ a treasure. Thank you.”

Just like that, she swept out of the room, her sights set instead on soothing another beast entirely. The silence between Zsasz and Ilarion lingered for a moment, before Ilarion let out a low, uneasy laugh.

“You should have told her no,” he said, passing a hand over his face. Victor gave him a flat, dry look, and he laughed again. “I know. But, Victor--”

The way Ilarion said his name, with that foreign lilt, so much more pronounced than his sister’s that turned his v’s into very soft, almost imperceptible w’s; it made Victor’s stomach knot a little. He was good at reading people. He was _good_ at it, and when he read Ilarion, he saw bloody, violent tenderness in the way the brunette said his name.

And then Ilarion was close. Closer than before, his hand resting on the counter beside Victor’s hip. Ilarion said, “They will try to kill you.”

“Nothing new,” Victor offered between the cadence of his heartbeat, glancing up and painfully skipping over the brunette’s storm-hardened gaze. “Keeps it interesting. I’d like to see someone try, anyway. I’ll add them to my collection.”

The scars stung at the mention, a phantom pain lingering on the top of his skin. Always there, never forgotten.

Ilarion’s lips quirked in a tiny smile. “Well,” he said, pulling back, and he _did_ give Zsasz a once-over then, deliberate. “At least it will not be difficult to pretend to find you attractive.”

The statement could have knocked the wind out of Zsasz if he hadn’t been bracing himself already. _That was it_ , he had thought as Ilarion strode out of the room, one hand slung in the pocket of his dark, pressed slacks. _That’s what they do. They wait until the last minute to gut-punch you with tenderness._

He bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, binding himself to reality once again.

◇─◇──◇────◇ 7 DAYS ◇────◇──◇─◇

Ilarion stretched his arm out, rolling the sleeve of his collared shirt up and frowning down at the paperwork in front of him. It was a never-ending onslaught of legal nothings; ever since their father’s death six months ago, the lawyers had lost their fucking minds. Nothing had prepared them to have to move everything into Ilarion’s name, as their father had wished it. Not to mention quelling the outcry from the other members of his father’s organization, demanding a witch-hunt for whoever had dared to commit the treasonous act of poisoning Nikita Astakhov.

“I think Zsasz would look better in white than you,” Varya mused from the couch, flipping through a magazine. As Ilarion looked at her, he felt the ache in his chest burn violently; it felt that way every time he looked at her, aware of the terrible thing they had done together. Together, certainly, but by whose guidance? By whose hand had he been convinced? Ilarion knew what their father had done to Varya, eventually, but not the whole time. He hadn’t harbored the violent hatred in his heart for the same amount of time she had. He still grieved.

He said, “I do not like wearing white, anyway.”

“Blue _is_ more your color.”

“I would like to remind you this is a pretend engagement, sis.”

“Oh, you are spoiling my fun.” She sighed. The brunette turned and stretched out like a little mermaid, her chin on the arm of the couch. “I know that you like Zsasz. Our types are not so different, Ilya--looks-wise, perhaps, but not in nature.”

“He is a man capable of acts of brute strength,” Ilarion replied matter-of-factly, reading over the same paragraph twice more. _They are demanding justice_ , is what Alexei’s report said. _They want to know who has done it_. If only they knew that the murderer they sought was flipping through wedding magazines, planning a way to smother them for eternity. “I find it admirable. Just ask Vita, he thinks so, too.”

He glanced at the doorway where Vitaly stood; ever immovable, a permanent fixture in their lives. Vitaly had been brought on shortly after their mother’s death ( _murder,_ his brain corrected him) as a handsome young guard, if not a little quiet. Now, his hair peppered and grayed, and the lines on his face aged him. He and Alexei both were the closest thing the twins had to real parents. And, like all children chose their parental favorites, Vitaly was Varya’s.

“It was a good cut,” Vitaly acquiesced. 

Varya rolled her eyes, looking back at Ilya. “Consider this: perhaps I know you better than you know yourself, Ilya.”

_I would not be surprised._

“Don’t _you_ think, Vita?” she asked, now turning to look at the man. Unlike when Ilarion had prompted him, now, a little smile quirked the edges of the older man’s lips. She had always had that effect on him, starting all the way back when she was young.

“I think,” Vitaly said, “that you have always known him better than he knows himself, Miss.”

◇─◇──◇────◇ 5 DAYS ◇────◇──◇─◇

And that was how the announcement came to be made, to everyone that mattered, that Ilarion Astakhov was now engaged--and to none other than Roman Sionis’ right-hand man, _attack dog_ Victor Zsasz.

 _What a mouthful_ , Roman had thought when Varya had pieced it out like that for him. All of these people, whose status declared the importance of both their first and last name in conversation. She had said it once, late at night in bed, her head tucked against his chest; and when she had, she sounded so delighted by the words coming out of her mouth that he found himself nodding along.

Nevermind that he was putting Zsasz in the direct line-of-sight of someone who very much wanted to kill at least _one_ of the Astakhovs, and who would certainly decide to kill Ilarion once this became public. Roman was not convinced that Nikita was dead, even if the twins--Varya for certain and Ilarion by proxy--were.

He hated the whole thing more when it came up in conversation. In the nights that he spent down in the club after it became public, it felt like it was all anyone talked about. The attention was no longer on the fact that Roman Sionis had entered a deliciously illicit affair with Ilarion’s younger twin, but that Ilarion was _fucking his right hand man_. Roman could barely stand the thought that anyone could _consider_ the idea that he would have gotten one-upped by someone like Ilarion Astakhov.

“Don’t you think you’ve been greedy enough, Roman?” Dorian asked one evening, lounging in the booth next to Roman. They were both watching Varya as she chatted warmly with a cluster of lower-tier mobsters and their companions. But didn’t she just thrive like that, glowing under their attentions and laughing at their jokes that weren’t really that funny? Now, Roman could recognize all of her moves--the flutter of her lashes, demure and coy, the modest smile to a flattering comment, ever so _shy_ at the attention when she was really drinking it in.

It had become apparent to Roman, in the last few weeks with Varya lingering at his side, that now she did her work just the same--but for _him._ All of the pleasantries, and the networking, and the charming that she had always done for Ilarion was on his behalf, and she fell into the role so easily that he hadn’t even noticed the shift.

Of course, there was Ilya, and Zsasz. Zsasz had asked Roman, ‘Do you _really_ want me to do this?’ a few nights ago, before the announcement had been made, and Roman had said yes, that he did, because it was fake anyway, and only _temporary_ , and as soon as they got rid of the hunting party--

All of the things that Varya said to him, regurgitated to make himself and Zsasz feel better about the upcoming events. Even now, as Roman’s eyes spotted Ilya’s hand on the small of Victor’s back, and the ease with which the Astakhov twin found himself treating Zsasz like a lover, the bile rose in his throat. He hated it. He hated seeing Ilarion _laughing,_ thanking someone for a compliment, lowering his head to say something into Zsasz’s ear, his movements a perfect mimicry of Varya's own.

“I’m sure you have a point that you’re getting to that’ll make it so I’m not offended by what you just said,” Roman replied absently, setting his glass down on the table and looking at the journalist, his eyes narrowed. 

Dorian laughed (a little nervously), and smoothed his hair back from his face. “You’ve got a monopoly on the Astakhov twins, now,” he explained. “One’s in your bed and one’s fucking your right-hand man.”

“They’re actually _engaged_ ,” Roman corrected, with only a bit of an effort to mask his bitterness. Dorian eyed him, and he sighed. He forgot he was supposed to be happy about it. “What I mean is--Ilarion wouldn’t be happy if you were…” _Come on, Roman, just act like you give a fuck. Just act like you care about their fake relationship._ “... Referring to Zsasz. Like that.”

Dorian arched a brow upward. “You are being remarkably sensible, Roman.”

“Very funny, Dorian. Have you ever considered doing stand-up? I think you’d fucking kill it.”

The journalist opened his mouth hurriedly to reply and sate Roman’s flippant irritation, but relief washed over his face instead when Varya approached the booth. She set her glass down on the end of the table, smoothing out her dress. “Are you two having fun?” she quipped. There was a pleasant flush in her cheeks; whether from the socializing or from the drink, he couldn’t tell.

“Roman was just chastising me for the way I was referring to your brother and Mr. Zsasz’s relationship,” Dorian said, tilting his cheek to accept Varya’s gentle greeting kiss. He was Varya’s favorite, of all of the associates. “It was too casual, apparently.”

Roman rolled his eyes, scooting to the edge of the booth seat and beckoning. Varya did as he asked and settled herself in his lap, one arm draped around his neck and the other resting on his chest. It was such a little victory; every time Varya did exactly as he asked, he felt a little swoon in his chest.

“My brother is not someone who does anything casually,” Varya sighed at Dorian. “And Roman would never let anyone speak ill of them, anyway. They are too dear to us to tolerate such a thing, aren’t they?”

Roman tilted his head up to her. He thought, _all this, to have an entire kingdom under my grip._ When she dragged her index finger across his lower lip, he said with all of the carefully-manicured control he had left, “That’s exactly right, sweet thing.”

Varya smiled and kissed him--and kissed him, and kissed him, until Roman was vaguely aware of Dorian groaning and announcing his departure from the booth, until his lungs ached and he dug his fingers into her hip.

“Look, you’ve scared Dorian out of here,” he murmured huskily. She laughed and carded her fingers through his hair. “Who’s going to drink with me now?”

“He is nosey,” she replied. “Besides--I just spent all that time pretending like those idiots had something interesting to say. I’m sure they would love to sit down and have a drink with _the_ Roman Sionis.”

Roman made a low noise of amusement. “Yet, here you are.”

“Yet, here I am.” Varya planted a kiss in the hollow of his throat. “I suppose that I just cannot resist you.” Another kiss, just below his ear, and then the graze of her teeth along the sensitive skin there. He made a low noise, and she continued, “Even when I am supposed to be working.”

“Is that so? I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts further on my irresistibility.”

Varya laughed and her lips found his again. He felt the warmth from her body sleeping through his clothes, the silk of her dress crumpling under his fingers with no resistance at all. He considered taking her upstairs and ignoring the guests who were still waiting for his attention; what did he fucking care, anyway? After this, they’d have to kiss the fucking ground he walked on whether they wanted to or not.

“I’m afraid they’re not appropriate for the workplace, my love.” Varya murmured the words heatedly against his skin. “Better saved for later, when you don’t have to exercise any restraint. Although--”

Roman _felt_ the grin before he saw it--she pulled back from him, just enough so that she could meet his gaze, an appraising look on her face. She amended, “I _do_ enjoy when I can tell you’re just barely holding back.”

He felt the heat crawl down his spine. His gaze swept over her in consideration. She _was_ giving him a choice, and Varya was nothing if not a benevolent player in the games that they both enjoyed. It was her very sly way of saying, _I want you to chase me_.

“Alright, off with you, wicked thing,” he growled, but he grabbed her hips when she moved to slide off of his lap, pulling her back against his chest to plant a kiss on her neck. The goosebumps rising on her skin gave her away despite her controlled demeanor. His gaze scanned the crowd for a moment, purposefully skipping over Ilarion’s head of curly hair. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you liked charming all of those idiots in front of me.”

She was breathless when she laughed and ran her hand along his arm affectionately. “Only if it made you want to teach me a lesson later,” she replied coyly. Roman’s teeth caught the faded color of a lovemark on her neck and she hissed a little, squirming.

“Filthy,” he rumbled. “You’re awfully disobedient as of late, kitten.”

He finally nudged her from his lap--because if he didn’t then, he never would--and came to a stand. Varya handed him his glass with all of the sweetness in the world.

“A little later, then,” she said, not a request. Never a request. The insinuation lingered between them; that all night, she would go out of her way to distract him, to make it so that he could only think about her and not the stinging jealousy of sharing Zsasz, and not the infuriating drivel of the crime families flocking for his attention, but _only_ her. To watch him restrain.

He grinned. “A little later.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

For the second time in a month, Roman returned to the loft to find the door slightly ajar. Music played now, too; melodic, mournful piano notes echoing hauntingly, that Roman could recognize as one of Varya’s favorites. But it was late into the afternoon this time, and as he made his way up the stairs, he could hear her voice instructing in Russian from down the hall.

He reached down and picked up the volume control for the music as he came into the penthouse, turning the music down just a few notches before glancing around. His paramour lingered in the doorway of the bedroom, overseeing two gentlemen.

“Good. _Bol'shoye spasiba_ ,” Varya said to the men, stepping out of the bedroom and spotting Roman. She looked quite pedestrian, in her little jean shorts and tank top, beaming at him. Roman was warm from the afternoon, and while the air conditioner in the penthouse kept the room at a cool seventy-three degrees, the heat still stuck to him. 

It felt awfully domestic, to just have her _there_ in his home, more comfortable and at-ease than she had ever been. Enough time had passed for her to memorize where everything was supposed to be, he’d guessed; but as she wandered over to him and looped her arms around his neck, he could think only of how much it pleased him to have her here, instead of at the villa.

“Doll,” he greeted her, bending to kiss her. Varya made a delighted noise into the kiss.

“Hello, handsome,” she replied, grinning. “I am glad you’re here. Come, look.” She beckoned and took his hand, leading him into the room where two men--Roman could only assume, Astakhov men--carefully hanging a piece of art on the wall. Her fingers interlaced with his comfortably. “What do you think?”

It was something Roman would have never pinned for Varya’s tastes; he always imagined she would prefer the cherubic images from the Italian Renaissance, like the way the Astakhov’s ballroom had been painted like the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. But this was almost lackluster in comparison. Framed delicately in metal, the portrait was of a black square, little pops of geometric shapes scaling along the black, like the paint was flaking off. It certainly did look more at home in his penthouse than it would have in the Astakhov’s villa.

“I think that when I said you should start putting some things here, I was talking more along the lines of clothing, or a toothbrush,” Roman replied, the edges of his lips quirking up in a wry smile. She laughed.

“It is one of my favorite art pieces. I brought it out of storage just to bring here, because I thought it was more to your tastes.” 

He slid his arms around her waist and planted a kiss in the crook of her neck. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me why it’s a favorite.”

“Well, it is one of the only art pieces I’ve ever had stolen,” Varya explained, her voice playful. “It is by the artist Kazimir Malevich, painted in 1915. The State Tretyakov Gallery refused to sell it to me, can you believe that?”

Roman laughed at the indignation in her voice. It reminded him of the way she had asked Ilarion if he expected _her_ to cut off someone’s hand. And then: “Wait, you have a personal art thief?”

Varya turned her head a little, eyeing him. “Yes, of course. Did you think I came by all of my art honestly?” she asked. “She was easily one of the best, and _quite_ lovely too.” Varya’s voice welled with what Roman recognized as admiration, or affection; the two were often interchangeable with the Astakhov, and mutually exclusive; one did not exist without the other. “Quick-witted, got the job done fast; did not ask too many questions but enough of the right ones. You would like her.”

He exhaled and nosed her ear, only half-listening as he planted a kiss there. “Perhaps you could share her information with me, in case I’m in the market for gift shopping.”

The brunette’s laughter was sweet; she reached up and caressed his face, brushing their noses together.

“I did say she _was_ one of the best,” Varya sighed, a little longingly. “Even if she wasn’t dead, I wouldn’t have shared her, not with anyone.” She paused, looking thoughtful for a moment. _More collateral damage from the Astakhovs, maybe_ , Roman thought absently. 

“I do think that Madilyn Moone would absolutely detest you,” she added, and then, as though to soften the blow: “My darling.”

Roman frowned and furrowed his brow. He tried not to feel offended, even by the dead. “But you said--”

“--That _you_ would love her, yes,” Varya agreed, swaying in his arms. “You have an eye for fine things. But the feeling is not always so mutual. You are such a delicious brand of danger that I think you forget it.”

He made a small, discontented noise. “That’s a nice way to say she’d think I’m an asshole.”

“Well, _you_ said it.”

Roman rolled his eyes, dropping his arms from her waist and walking back out into the loft. “Talk to me about what the timeline is for this, uh--”

As he gestured vaguely for the word he was looking for, Varya smiled. “The engagement party?” she supplied, and her smile did not fade even when Roman grimaced.

“Yes.”

“It’s still set for Friday,” she said, leaning her palms against the table. “Try not to dread it too much, my love; it will be over, we will have coaxed our hunters out of hiding, and all will be where it is supposed to.”

Roman tried not to think about how it had become _their_ hunters, now.

◇─◇──◇────◇ 3 DAYS ◇────◇──◇─◇

“I don’t really think I need to be here for this,” Roman said as he parked the car in front of the Astakhov villa. Varya tsked her tongue a little, shooting him a look. As the days whittled down to the fake engagement party--artfully and meticulously thrown together by Varya herself, to be held in the Astakhov’s own manor, and the first time that anyone outside of Roman and Zsasz would step foot inside of it--Roman felt more and more uneasy. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were missing something. That by proxy of that, they were going headfirst into a trap.

“I think it would mean a lot to Zsasz,” she chided softly. Roman groaned. He felt the headache welling behind his eyes already.

“Please stop talking like they’re actually engaged.”

“Roman.” Varya’s voice was firmer now. “You will have to spend a whole night pretending you are happy, as though for some reason this engagement is not fake and you are _still_ happy with it. Please tell me that you can.”

“Of _course_ I can,” he snapped. “I’m Roman fucking Sionis, of _course_ I can pretend to be happy for an evening. I just don’t see why we have to maintain it when we’re not around anyone else.”

“Because,” she replied, “if you spend even a second looking dubious, Zsasz will lose his confidence.”

It was true; Roman knew it was. In the week since they had made the announcement and sent out invites for the engagement party, Zsasz had more frequently looked to Roman for confirmation, approval, whatever it was. In the conversations held between the four of them, Zsasz’s gaze most often searched Roman’s for an answer where there was usually none to be found. All of the answers lay with Varya, who gave them to Roman to reiterate to Zsasz.

“Romy.”

She was soft now. He groaned again, closing his eyes. “Don’t sweet talk me,” he sighed, refusing to look at her. “Let me wallow.”

“I could not stand to,” Varya murmured. She unbuckled and reached over, kissing his cheek, his jaw. Her hand found his again, this time interlinking their fingers. “Look at me, darling.”

He didn’t want to, but he did, cracking open one eye like a dragon wrested from its slumber to look at her. Varya’s dark brows had pulled together in sympathy.

“Don’t you trust me?” she asked. He sighed. _What a fucking question._ She didn’t ask if he loved her, or if he was absolutely devoted to her, or anything like that; what she asked of him was far greater, far heftier. _Trust_ was something so sparse in supply in Roman’s life that he guarded it jealously. His eyes squinted shut to fend off the pounding pain behind them.

“Of course.” The way one trusted a panther on a leash; warily. “Of course I do, kitten.”

She seemed satisfied by his answer. She said, “Trust me when I say that everything will go back to normal when this is all over with, too.”

_What even is normal, anymore?_

“I do,” Roman acquiesced. A little smile tugged at the corner of Varya’s lips.

“Then give me a kiss and tell me how incredible I am.”

He couldn’t suppress the amusement. He murmured, “Clever girl, always finding ways to turn my words back on me.”

She beamed; he leaned over and kissed her, letting the feel of her lips against his melt away the anxieties of the event that lay just ahead of them. When they did part, he swept some of her hair from her face.

“You’re going to owe me,” he told her. “For letting you use Zsasz like this.”

She laughed and opened her door, sliding out of the passenger seat. Roman followed suit; as they approached the front door, she said, “I will make it up to you however you’d like.”

“The last time you said that to me, you spent all night making it up to me.”

She nudged the door, which had been left slightly ajar by Ilarion--not uncommon--so that they could walk inside. “I didn’t hear any complaints about my performance,” she replied, setting her bag down by the door. “Ilya? We’re here.”

Roman tried not to take too much pleasure that she announced it as ‘we’re here’ instead of ‘I’m home’; it seemed she more often referred to the penthouse as home, now.

“Ilarion?” Varya called again, listening for a moment and then shrugging. “He must be in the ballroom already.”

As they headed down the foyer towards the ballroom, Roman saw that this door was wide open. Varya was beaming as she reached to push the other half of the big double-doors open, saying, “Ilya, we’re here to--”

Ilarion was suddenly there, looming in the doorway; over his shoulder, Roman saw the man he recognized as Alexei, brows knitted together. 

He thought to make a joke about if they had caught him at an inappropriate time: but then he saw Ilarion’s face. Every line of the brunette’s expression was hard and cold, and his eyes were darkened with a frenzying kind of panic.

More alarming than that was the fact that Ilya’s jacket was shucked on the floor and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He had only ever seen the man do that when he was dealing with particularly nasty business.

“Ilya,” Varya said, still warm, “we came to help with setting up.”

But Ilarion didn’t look at her. He continued standing in the doorway, one arm pressed up against the closed half of the double-doors, staring right at Roman. “Take her out of here,” he said with all of the biting force of a man who held urgent purpose. 

Roman’s stomach plummeted. Something was wrong; something was wrong enough that Ilarion didn’t want Varya to see. Something was wrong enough that Ilarion was choosing to acknowledge _him_ over his _twin._

“Don’t be petulant,” Varya insisted. There was now the kind of nervous energy in her voice that implied she sensed something was wrong, too. “I know you two haven’t always gotten along, but--” 

She stopped. Her gaze was fixed on Ilarion’s hand on the doorway. It was crimson, wet with fresh blood; it left an incriminating handprint when he dropped his hand to disguise it.

“Who’s blood?” she asked. Ilarion’s jaw clenched. “Ilya, _skazhi mne sychas_. Who’s blood is that?”

 _Victor,_ Roman thought, but that didn’t seem right. Victor wasn’t here yet, right? So who?

“Go, Varya,” Ilarion said. “We will talk about this later. You and Roman, go now--”

“We can wait to help,” Roman tried to reason, the cold, hard feeling that something was terribly, awfully wrong now pulsing in his chest, given a life of its own (and it always was that way, wasn’t it? _Dread_ , a monster of its own kind). He brushed her hand with his. “Right, kitten? We can--”

“Move,” Varya snapped, pushing Ilya’s arm out of the way and forcing her way into the ballroom.

She didn’t make it very far. By the time Roman had also skirted Ilarion, who was barking something out at Alexei, he saw what had stopped her in her tracks. 

It was Vitaly, propped upright on a chair, in his usual button-up and slacks. Red drenched the front of his pressed, white shirt. Roman followed the crimson trail up to Russian’s throat, which had been brutally cut open.

Her hands fluttered uselessly over Vitaly’s body, unsure of where to land, what to do; nothing _could_ be done, of course. Roman could see no breath left in the man’s body. His eyes lay focused lifelessly on the ceiling, toward the angels floating serene among the clouds of the ballroom. Roman could see, too, his jaw hanging open; broken, loose in his skin, his tongue cut out of his skull.

Roman was only vaguely aware of himself, grabbing Varya around the waist just in time as she went to reach for Vitaly, _really_ reach for him. He was afraid of what she would do if she touched his lifeless body, what hairpin trigger that would trip. He said desperately, “Don’t look, darling,” and pressed her face to his chest, trying to shield her from the sight. He _felt_ the sound of wretched grief come out of her, rattling against his sternum, echoing in the hollow of his chest. 

“I have to,” she moaned, the sound absolute misery. “I have to--my Vita, what did they _do_ to him--”

His arms gripped her tighter; he fixed his gaze on Ilarion, and now Alexei, whose expression was hardened at the sight of her torment. “What are you standing around for?” Roman snarled. His voice flexed in volume, not only because of the strain of the grisly scene laid out before them but _anger_ , that they would let her see this. “Get that fucking body out of here!”

Varya wadded his shirt in her fingers, clutching desperately, too weak with grief to free herself from him even if she wanted to. He was too afraid of trying to walk her anyway and giving her the opportunity to escape his grip; so he gathered her into his arms, lifting her and carrying her out of the ballroom and up the stairs to her room.

“Roman.” Her voice gave away her agony, even if the tears she desperately swallowed back didn’t come; he sat her on the edge of the bed, pushing the hair back from her face so that he could see her. “I will never be happy again--”

“Don’t say that,” he murmured, his heart pounding hard against his ribs. He couldn’t get the gruesome image of Vitaly’s corpse out of his mind. “Don’t say that, love.”

She held a feverish high-color in her cheeks. Her lashes fluttered rapidly as she struggled to stay connected. “I have to know,” she said, gritting her teeth. “I have to know who did it, Roman, I have to find them.”

 _Vicious._ So quickly did she turn from grief to vengeance, as though it were the only thing that could propel her forward. Maybe it was.

“We will,” he promised, even though he didn’t know how. 

She said, her voice thicker now, breaking in front of him, _only for me, she would never have broken like this for anyone else_ , “Promise me.”

From where he knelt between her knees on the floor, he took in a breath. The smell of blood stuck to his lungs. He pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist, not shying away from her virulent gaze, even as it pinned him.

“We will, Varya. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Bol'shoye spasiba - thank you very much!
> 
> skazhi mne sychas - listen to me


	15. casus belli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman gets to release his feelings (in a very healthy way), and the world goes marching on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I'm gonna make this a nice light chapter for a little break!  
> Also Me: *writes emotionally exhaustive chapter*
> 
> Oh man it's really!!! It's really popping off!!! I am for real going to write a little rest chapter in here because I don't want you guys to feel like I'm just yanking you along on a 150mph wild ride the whole time, but it's kind of hard when you've got these two psychos at the helm. I hope you enjoy the chapter; there aren't any warnings, not really, aside from strong language and like, idk, feelings? Roman is wild, my dudes. Special s/o to my dear [Starcrier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrier) for beta-ing this chapter with great finesse, and the love of my life, [sithmaurauder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithmarauder), not only for putting up with me talking about these dumbasses every 5 seconds BUT ALSO released her joplittle fic that is just??? Incredible???? Please go read it immediately.
> 
> I appreciate all of the feedback always, I immediately cry anytime anyone says anything nice to me. This fic has been a personal project on exercising my ability to let go of my fears of publishing my writing, so every nice word (legitimately) makes me emotional.

Roman had long since accustomed himself to expect the unexpected when it came to Varya. That did not stop him from thinking he knew what was going to happen and then--eventually--being surprised by the realization that he was more often wrong than not.

The violent grief that had gripped her in the ballroom was neatly packaged away by the time she had begun to wordlessly pack clothes into an overnight bag, with Roman a whirlwind of angry energy around her. Each of her movements was slow; the sluggish drag of every heartbeat between when she would select an item and pack it away was almost torturous for him to watch. He felt a sickening, hot impatience. The sooner they got out of this fucked-up hell house, the better.

He heard Ilarion and Alexei exchanging sharp words down below, followed by the sound of Ilarion’s footsteps on the stairs. Roman’s teeth clenched. The last thing he wanted to do right then was talk to Ilarion--and, the last thing he wanted for _Varya_.

“What about this?” Roman prompted her, holding out a sweater for her. He tried not to be impatient, though it felt a bit like dealing with a toddler when she regarded the article with lethargy, like she couldn’t quite process what he was asking her to do. “Put it on, darling, it’s cold out--and let’s go.” 

Frenetic energy vibrated in his skull. _Out, out, out_ , his brain screamed at him, pumping adrenaline violently through his system. The Astakhov mansion was a death trap; of that, he was now certain and doubly convinced. Big and luxurious and golden, it sat as a shining beacon to whoever was hunting the twins down. 

Now they _knew_ where they were. They had proven they had access to it. Every neuron in his brain was firing off warning signals, and Roman knew better than to ignore them.

“What is going on?”

Ilarion’s thick voice jarred his train of thought. Roman’s teeth clicked together. He pushed the sweater into Varya’s arms and then zipped her bag for her--whatever she was missing, they could easily pick it up at a store. They didn’t need to stay in this funhouse of horrors any longer.

“I’m taking Varya back into the city with me,” he replied, trying his hardest to keep his bubbling anger under a tight lid. It was near-impossible, of course; Ilarion was by no means a man that comfortably released his sense of control, just as Roman was not a man who comfortably tolerated idiocy, so the look of anger that passed over the other man’s face was almost enough to send him reeling.

The fact that Ilarion--a man a full head or two taller than his sister, stronger in every physical capacity--had not had the foresight to stop her from rushing into a room where the corpse of the only father figure that had not failed her lay brutalized was unforgivable, unacceptable, so _incredibly fucking stupid_ \--

“No,” Ilarion said, yanking Roman out of his thoughts. His eyes narrowed and he stilled his movements.

“ _No_?” Roman repeated; he bit the words out, and it felt a bit like the cock of a fist right before someone landed a punch. Ilarion’s brows furrowed and he opened his mouth to say something, but Roman turned to Varya and guided her towards the door, shouldering Ilarion out of the way. “Down to the car, pet.”

“It is not safe for her,” Ilarion insisted angrily, reaching for Varya’s arm. “She will be safe where I can watch over her--”

Roman grabbed Ilarion’s wrist to stop it from reaching Varya. “Safe like Vitaly?” he spit out. Varya had stilled in the hallway; her fingers around the strap of her bag were so tight that her knuckles were going white, but Roman could not see--nor did he care about--her expression. Instead, he watched the evolution of emotions on Ilarion’s face; usually so immovable, the hurt crumpled his expression. It felt good. Roman felt _good._

“It is not the same,” Ilarion said, weaker now. He pulled his wrist out of Roman’s grip, and not without a little struggle.

A part of Roman continued waiting for Varya to say something, to buffer like she always had, a perfectly placed obstacle between Roman and Ilarion’s hostilities, taking blows from each side. But she didn’t. She wandered silently down the stairs, leaving Ilarion and Roman alone on the second level; perhaps tuning them out, perhaps reviewing the grisly way someone had disposed of Vitaly’s life in the quiet of her own brain.

So Roman said, incredulous, “Are you fucking stupid?”

The Russian’s mouth opened again; but there was no time, anymore, because with Varya’s silence came Roman’s freedom to say whatever the fuck he pleased, and _boy_ did it feel sweet, to let that venom just well up in his mouth, poisonous and black and bitter. No need to play nice anymore. If Varya didn’t like it, she could take it up with him later.

“Actually, I know the answer to that question: you’re not stupid, you’re just fucking _useless_.” Roman was seething; he turned his gaze to Ilarion fully now. “You know, a month ago, I would have said you Astakhovs were all bark and no bite, but the fact of the matter is, together, you’re about as dangerous as a real attack dog--except _you’re_ the bark and she’s all of the _fucking bite!_ ”

The foyer echoed with his words as his voice spiked in volume. All of the blood coursing through his body felt red-hot; his fingers itched for violence. He thought, _if your sister wasn’t right downstairs, I’d fucking choke the life out of you myself._

Ilarion swallowed and visibly steeled himself. He started again, trying to gain momentum: “If you think that--”

“What I _think_ is that you’re a fucking boy, Ilarion,” Roman snapped, jabbing a finger into his chest, “playing at being a man. What I _think_ is that you made _me_ look like a big fucking idiot, trusting that you had any sort of capabilities. You really want me to think that Big Boy Ilarion Astakhov can’t stop his button-sized sister from getting into a room? You’re _weak_ , and that’s _fucking_ unacceptable.” His lips curled around the words, spitting them out with disgust. “You’d better get this shit figured the fuck out, Ilarion, because you _do not_ want me deciding you’re so inept that I’ve got to clean up your fucking mess.”

He could taste the vitriol, bitter and buzzing, in his mouth. He hoped the words stung. If nothing else, they rendered Ilarion quiet for once; blessedly, blissfully quiet, though the monster in Roman wished he would say something. The Astakhovs did have a poor habit of trying to get the last word in.

But Ilarion didn’t say anything. He stood in the doorway of Varya’s room while Roman stormed down the stairs, grabbing his keys out of his pocket and taking her hand; when he pulled a little, he met a bit of resistance.

“What?” he asked, perhaps a little harder than he intended as he came off of the high of chewing Ilarion out, stopping and turning to her. Her gaze was fixed on the ballroom, where the chair that had once held Vitaly’s body now sat empty. One of the men scrubbed the floor with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His rag was stained red, and when he stopped to wring it out, it dripped crimson into the bucket; the scent of bleach wafted out in a tidal wave.

Roman swallowed. He pulled on Varya’s hand again, and this time she followed, lingering close to him as they walked out the front doors of the villa and down to where the car was waiting for them. Once she was safely tucked inside, Roman walked briskly to the driver’s side and paused only to glance back at the house one last time.

 _Good riddance,_ he thought bitterly, sliding into the driver’s seat. The sooner they got out, the better.

The car ride back was quiet, and relatively peaceful. Roman sent Zsasz several texts, including but not limited to: _get your hands on that fucking body immediately_ and _I don’t care if you have to run over every pedestrian at every red light to get there in 20._ He disliked nebulous, distant enemies, the kind that he couldn’t pin down, and this one was proving to be the nastiest yet.

As soon as they were on the highway back into Gotham, Roman let his shoulders relax; the tension wadded up at the base of his neck radiated pain upward into the back of his skull. His gaze flickered over to Varya. She had rested her head against the glass of the window, but every time her eyes went to close, they jerked open again, as though she couldn’t stand what she saw when the darkness overtook her vision.

The air felt heavy in the car. Roman reached and took her hand; his knuckles felt cold on the steering wheel, and he thought that he must be gripping her hand just as hard, but if it bothered her, she didn’t say. The image of Vitaly’s jaw, dislocated but left in his body like something out of a horror movie, was burned into his retinas.

It was not the grisly nature of the murder, not _really_ . It was the display of it. A proud show-and-tell of the body, mocking them. Mocking _him_ , too, clearly personal. More and more, Roman found himself wishing that someone could survive drinking rat poison; it would make their problems so much smaller if he just knew _who_ he was dealing with. 

There was a desperate hollowing in his chest, the kind of monster that scrabbled for a shred of control again while the world spun wildly in his narrowed view; _please_ , the monster said, very politely, _please give it back to me_.

 _Fuck,_ Roman thought viciously. _Fuck fuck fuck. It’s all fucked, the whole lot of it._

The buzzing in his skull grew only louder by every minute. By the time they had arrived back at the loft, the car passed off to one of his men and the space thoroughly searched by another before they entered, Roman felt like he had been awake for three weeks straight. 

He finally let go of Varya’s hand once they were inside. She stood in the doorway of the loft and hesitated.

“Come on,” he said, impatient to sit even though he had been doing just that for the last forty-five minutes. She seemed to steel herself for a moment, a second wave of resilience before she fell into step beside him; once in the bedroom, she dropped her bag unceremoniously on the floor and crawled into bed fully clothed. 

Roman, though, took his time undressing; the jacket and the shoes discarded, his belt and watch set aside and the buttons of his shirt loosened and undone before he joined her, sitting instead of fully committing himself to laying down.

She was, as par for the course, unknowable to him in so many ways. The glimpse of grief in the ballroom, the wracking misery reverberating in his chest, was gone; in its place lived a colder sorrow, an iron kind of anguish. But for all of this, when he sat on the edge of the bed and his weight dipped the mattress inward, she rolled over to him and tucked her head into his lap.

Soft and steeled, all at once. Her lashes fluttered, and she glanced up at him. “You were very mean to Ilarion,” she said. There was no heat in her voice. If Roman was not careful, he would think he heard admiration there. “No one is ever mean to Ilarion.” Varya paused. “Except for me, of course. It is my birthright.”

Roman felt helpless to stop the bitter laugh that came out of his mouth. He expected a scolding from her; but she only watched him, steady and unflinching, and that after _everything_ this was what she said to him first--

“He was going to _lecture_ me,” he muttered, running his fingers through her hair and watching her face relax a little. “About what was safe and wasn’t safe for you. _Me._ ”

 _“Akhal be dyadya, na sebya glyadya,”_ she murmured, twisting one of the buttons undone on his shirt around in the fabric. She sat up and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “The devil rebuking sin.”

It was a gentle reprimand, not hardly a reprimand at all if he thought about it long enough. Roman thought of her words, that night in the alley. _I think you may be chyerti,_ she’d said to him in the cool night, her fingers on his chest, gazing at him through her lashes, as though she had been pleased at the thought.

He brought his hands to her face, cupping her cheeks, and kissed her. He thought, _she chose me. Over Ilarion, she came here with me._

“Roman,” she said softly, her voice barely loud enough to hear and the words brushing their lips together as she spoke, “I do not think I will ever forget how he looked in that chair.”

He said, “Try to get some sleep, V.”

“I don’t want to sleep.” But she pulled away from him and crawled under the blankets all the same, obedient because her will to argue was shredded and destroyed. Roman gave her shoulder a squeeze and came to a stand, wandering out of the bedroom and closing the door behind him.

The loft felt empty. It struck Roman how much of a room Varya filled up when she was feeling like herself; now, with Zsasz gone to inspect Vitaly’s body, Roman felt more alone than he had in the last month or so. He walked over to fix himself a drink, passing a hand over his face.

_Papa Koschei is coming, coming, and he knows your name._

He took a swig of his drink, felt its burn on the way down. Late afternoon light washed the loft in an amber glow; he felt the gentle swoon of the alcohol kicking his system into a jump-start, soon to drag it down.

Varya was not wrong when she had referred to the enemy as _their_ hunter. It was no longer an Astakhov problem; now, someone had committed a violent crime against _his_ Varya, violated _his_ peace and tranquility. An affront against his things was an affront against him. Someone out there had decided the risk of pissing off Roman Sionis was worth their revenge.

 _Oh no,_ Roman thought darkly, pouring himself another drink, _that just won’t do._

◇─◇──◇────◇ 2 DAYS ◇────◇──◇─◇

“I won’t argue about it any longer.”

The decisiveness in Varya’s voice was grating on the last of Roman’s fraying patience. She raked a comb through her still-wet hair, the robe Roman had bought for her cinched in around her waist; like this, her hair reached all the way to her hips. He exhaled and crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the doorway. 

Roman had been trying, unsuccessfully, to convince her to postpone the engagement party. Vitaly’s grisly death had only cemented in her that it _needed_ to happen, that two days after she had said that she would never be happy again, she would play at being exactly that, as though a man she cared about--even loved--had not been left slaughtered in her own home.

“We aren’t arguing,” he replied haughtily, and her gaze flickered to meet his in the mirror, as if to say, _oh, aren’t we?_ He groaned. “We’re-- _discussing_ the _timeline_.”

He saw the edges of her lips quirk upward in an almost-but-not-quite-smile. She scrunched the last of the moisture out of her hair and then straightened up, walking over to him; her hands rested on his chest, and when she leaned up on her tip-toes to kiss him, it eased the frown on his face.

And then she said, “There is nothing left to discuss, darling,” and swept by him out into the bedroom, leaving him with a sour taste in his mouth.

It was one of the things that really got under his skin--Varya didn’t ever _let_ him take care of her, but she gave him the illusion that he was doing it. Just last night she had been clutching him, agonized by the loss of Vitaly; this morning, she insisted that the engagement party remain only a few days away, and did not think it pertinent to take his advice on postponing the event. He _knew_ that she hadn’t slept all night. 

She had never truly relinquished control to him, not fully and openly, not the way that he wanted. Did she even really trust him?

“Oh? Well, I’m glad you’ve decided that for us. I was really stuck on whether there was or not.” Roman tried not to sound as bitter as he felt, trailing after her into the bedroom and watching her sort through some clothes.

“What do you think?” she asked. She was frowning at two dresses. “The blue, or the green?”

Roman caught her wrists with his hands, bringing them up so that she had to look at him. “I think,” he said, carefully manicuring his voice to remain calm and controlled, “that you’re ignoring what I have to say, V.”

“I just don’t know what else to say, Romy,” Varya sighed, her brows knitting together. “If ever there was a reason to put an end to this--”

“I know,” he interrupted, loosening his hold on her and instead sliding his hands so that the palms were flat against hers. He watched her expression, watched for the flip; but it didn’t come. All he saw was the boiling sadness she had pushed down, a cement block dropped into her darkest waters again. “But _you’re_ here, and alive, and _mine_ , and I want to keep it that way as long as possible.”

She sighed. It was the lingering kind of sigh, the acquiescing kind that relented despite a willful desire not to. “I have to,” she said softly, and the words sent a jolt of dread through him; he thought of her sobbing into his chest, moaning _I have to_ in anguish when he told her not to look. “For my Vita.”

It was Roman’s turn to sigh. “At least--say you’ll move the party to the club,” he said after a moment. _Willful girl,_ he thought. “We don’t need to be back in that room again, not so soon.”

Varya considered for a moment before she nodded, at last, and the gesture breathed a little relief into his bones. “Alright,” she murmured. “I don’t care to go inside the ballroom again, anyway.”

“Good.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, dropping their hands in favor of cradling her face. “Go with the green.”

She laughed, and though the sound felt a little stilted coming out of her, he could see that she wanted it to be sincere. Roman kissed her again, and then said, “I’ll let you get ready.”

The brunette nodded, breaking away from him reluctantly to resume getting ready for the night. Roman slipped out of the bedroom and headed out into the main loft where he spotted Zsasz just walking in.

“Ah, you’re back,” Roman said. “Good news, I hope.”

“Information,” Zsasz replied, “though I’m not sure if that means good news. We need to talk.” _Alone_ was the insinuation left hanging there. Roman’s eyes narrowed. He glanced back at the bedroom; he’d closed the door behind him, but Varya could--theoretically--walk out at any minute. He gestured wordlessly for Zsasz to follow him further, into the kitchen, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Someone tattooed Vitaly’s body,” Zsasz started again, speaking low to Roman. “Ilarion said that--the tattoos are common practice among their men, to show status, or--”

“Like the dragon on the other one,” Roman interjected. “Right. And?”

“Well, Vitaly had a lot of them, you know--he’s been with them for so long. They were all… blacked out,” Zsasz continued, keeping his voice low. “Fresh ink.”

“Whoever killed him took the time to do that?” Roman asked, frowning. Zsasz nodded.

“They also gave him a new one, a skull on the front of his throat,” he added. “Ilarion told me it marks him as a murderer.”

The irony of a murderer marking his corpse like that was not lost on Roman; but the more he turned it around in his mind, the more he thought that the whole thing was like a spit in the face, illustrating his betrayal of the original Astakhov patriarch. _Incredibly_ personal, more personal than just a henchman or traditionalist would feel for the twins, and by proxy, Vitaly and Alexei. 

Zsasz glanced towards the bedroom door again, and then back to Roman. “Ilarion also told me that he doesn’t think their father is dead.”

A little spike of irritation flushed through him. He tried not to let it bother him, but the idea that Ilarion was confiding in Zsasz made his stomach sour. The bitterness of their last interaction was still fresh in his mind.

“That’s stupid,” he muttered. “I know that he didn’t watch when it happened, so I’d say he’s not the best resource.”

“Their father was paranoid,” Zsasz continued, his voice more urgent now, dropping lower. “Had always been paranoid, and six months ago, a year ago, he was more paranoid than ever. It wouldn’t be crazy if--”

“If _what_ , Zsasz?” Roman hissed. “If he survived drinking _rat poison_?”

“If he used a body double.”

Roman stopped. No fucking way. _No fucking way_. “No,” he said after a moment, shaking his head.

“Look, Ilarion _said_ that they caught that family friend, Artyem, in their father’s place several times, and--and apparently it’s common with the Russians--”

“No, there’s--no, Varya watched _her father die_.”

Zsasz grimaced. He didn’t say it, but Roman knew instantly what he was thinking: the night that Alfonzo and the unnamed Russian had broken in, Varya’s gaze had been empty, devoid of recognition. She had been so disassociated from her body that Roman and Zsasz themselves may as well have been intruders, before Zsasz started speaking to her; and even then, she had acted like she hadn’t seen Roman when she had looked right at him, surprised by his presence.

“Romy?”

Her soft voice filtered out to them, and he felt his teeth click down and clench _hard_. He just wanted one night; one single night to get his shit together before another bomb fucking dropped on him.

“Do not say anything about this to her,” Roman snapped, feeling hazy, “you understand?”

The blonde nodded. He didn’t need to be told twice; they had both seen the easy trigger in Varya, calculated and impulsive in equal amounts--as though she were _always_ considering a separate course of action, somewhere in her mind, like instinct.

Roman stepped out of the kitchen, finding Varya waiting for him. She smiled when she spotted him; the color was back in her cheeks, a lightness returned to her countenance.

“What do you think?” she asked, indicating the dress. It was the green one, a simple silk confection that scooped low at her chest and hugged everywhere else. If he didn’t think too hard about it, things almost felt normal again.

“You look heavenly,” Roman said, pushing the dread out of his stomach as he walked towards her and took her hands. “All eyes will be on you.”

“Sweet-talker.” The light scold in her voice was easily swept away by his kiss, his arms sliding around her waist and pulling her close to him. He kept thinking about what Zsasz had told him, and the emptiness in her dark eyes with the blood drenching her clothes, and the way she had pulled the trigger to empty rounds into Bianchi’s skull.

“Too heavenly,” Roman murmured against her skin, kissing along her jaw now. “Almost too good to let you waste it on all of those slummers down there. Maybe I should keep you up here all to myself?”

 _All mine._ The words rolled around in his head when she laughed at his touch. _That means all of it, the blood and the velvet, all until the black end._

“Everyone would miss you,” Varya teased. Roman rumbled a non-committal agreement and released her from his arms; when Zsasz came out from the kitchen, she beamed at him too and said, “Hello, darling. Thank you for dealing with that unpleasant business. What did you find?”

He let her kiss his cheek, his gaze flickering up to meet Roman’s; he gave the blonde a tiny, imperceptible shake of his head.

“Nothing,” Zsasz replied, giving her a crooked smile. “Not like your brother let me work for very long.”

“Oh, he is bad at letting others take the lead, isn’t he?” She _tsked_ her tongue. “Well, I appreciate it anyway. It’ll all be over soon.” A pause, and then: “Are you still furious with Ilarion, Romy?”

Pulled out of his thoughts, Roman tucked his hands into his pockets and gestured with an inclination of his head for them to head out. “Just until Hell freezes, that’s all,” he replied absently, hitting the button for the elevator doors. Varya sighed; her arm was looped through Zsasz’s, her cheek on his shoulder.

“He _is_ my twin; you shouldn’t hold it against him,” she scolded. “Not when he and our Zsasz are to be _engaged_.” Varya added the last words teasingly, making Roman roll his eyes.

“Let’s not delve into the authenticity of this _pretend_ engagement.” He stepped into the elevator, and when he did, Varya and Zsasz followed; she had disentangled herself from the blonde to instead lean comfortably against the back wall, watching Roman.

“You can’t stay mad at him forever.”

He smiled, the gesture only thinly veiling his contempt at the idea of making amends with Ilarion; if the Astakhov wanted to pretend like nothing was wrong or that nothing had happened between them, then he could do that, but Roman did not need to play into his ego.

“Oh, love,” he murmured, kissing her temple, “I think you underestimate my ability to hold a grudge.”


	16. the blood you owe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman gets a chandelier, and it's really fucking huge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHH. So it took a lot longer to get this chapter done, but this chapter is like. 2x bigger than all the others, coming in at a whopping 8k words (roughly, a little over that but you know). Anyway! I originally thought this was going to be the last chapter, but because it was getting so long because I filled this chapter with so much tooth-aching sugary goodness to delay the end of it that I made it too long to fit the actual whole end arc into this one. SO! You get a big cheese chapter with a dash of plot.
> 
> Thank you again to [Starcrier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrier) for giving me all of the love and encouragement in the world, you are the biggest stan of Romya and we love you!!! And of course, the loml [sithmarauder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithmarauder), who is inspirational to me as the sun is in rising to the moon every night.
> 
> I really hope you guys love it! I've stared at these words for so long I don't know if they're cohesive anymore, but I sure hope they are. Warnings for this chapter include language, and some violence/blood (gore? I guess). And like, you know. The Feels.

“ **Love is not a gentle, lovely passion** (or not only that—for we should not forget Medea’s wish for Jason’s good); it is the strongest form of violence in nature, a fire that burns now for our wonder, now for our terror. [...] Now we know the deepest reason why the Aristotelian cannot say, ‘I shall have love in my life, but I shall get rid of murderous rage.’ **It is because it is love itself that rages and does murder**.”

—Martha Nussbaum, _The Therapy of Desire_

◇─◇──◇────◇ 1 DAY ◇────◇──◇─◇

Ilarion and Varya Astakhov had always been two halves of one whole; everyone knew this, and that was the beginning and the end of it. Where Ilarion had the steel and cruelty of their father, Varya had the insight, the ability to read people. With Nikita Astakhov dead, it was widely understood among the members of their father’s organization that the twins would take his seat together, just as they had always done everything, a perfect balance of each other in every way.

But as Ilarion watched his sister comparing the colors of silken ties to each other, and saw the twitch of her lips when Roman Sionis—a crime lord notorious for his cruelty, his temper, these things which made him so like their own father (and maybe this was why Varya could not stay away from him, a moth to a poisonous flame)—said something sweet to her, he felt very far away from her, farther than he had ever felt even with geographical miles between them. When had she become a woman who tamed, who had a man of cruelty following her every movement with his eyes like he wanted to treasure and devour her? When had she become a woman who let herself be tamed by that man?

This was not a Varya he was familiar with. That was not to say that it wasn’t there all along; this soft girl, this wicked girl, perhaps she _had_ been there, and Ilarion had not been able to see it. Or had not wanted to. In a world where Varya would need him always, her big brother, _her other half_ , Ilarion was happy; but she did not need him anymore. She was cruel and soft in equal amounts now, a capable heiress.

 _I am so tired,_ Ilarion thought absently. _I am so tired of running._

“—do you think?”

Varya’s voice shook him from his thoughts. She was holding two ties up for him; one navy, and one a deep, burnt gold. She was looking at him expectantly. She had not spoken to him about Vitaly, a man more a father to them than their own, and if there was anything plaguing her about his death, it did not show; but now she spoke to him about ties.

He thought of her, propped up on the couch, flipping through a bridal magazine. _Blue_ is _more your color,_ she’d said slyly,

( _he thinks of her, thick tears rolling down her cheeks, a welt blooming on her cheek, ‘why doesn’t he love me too?’ she says, and he doesn’t know what to say, so he says, ‘i love you,’ because he wants that to be enough to stop her hurt,_ )

as though she were happy that he was letting her choose. “The blue,” he replied. The words felt thick coming out of his mouth. Varya beamed, like the clouds parting for the sun, and she set the golden one down.

“That is what I was thinking too. I like when you go monochromatic, Ilya, it’s a good look on you.”

( _he thinks of her, watching their father from across the table, her food untouched, and their father says, ‘eat, varushka,’ and she says with all of the spite of a child who wants to be loved, ‘what if i don’t? what if i never eat until i die? what then?’ and their father points his knife at her and says, the blood of his steak seeped between his teeth, ‘then you die,’_ )

“I feel unwell,” Ilarion said, suddenly, drawing her gaze back to him. “I think I should go lay down.”

Varya’s brows furrowed. “What is it?”

He ignored the strange look from Roman—a look that tried to parse him out—and replied, “I am sure it is nothing. Just—the heat, maybe.”

Varya brought her hand to the nape of his neck; obedient, he leaned down, and she pressed their foreheads together to check his temperature. The gesture was so eerily like their mother that Ilarion felt his throat tighten. He never stopped missing her.

( _he thinks of her, and the way she angrily tells their father that one day he’ll die and she’ll finally be rid of him, and the way their father grips her jaw so tight that his fingers leave bruises the size of coins on her skin and says, ‘you’ll never be rid of me, varushka, i’m in your blood forever,’ and how she cried into his own shoulder that night and asks him why he didn’t stop their father, and the way that he can’t bring himself to tell her he doesn’t know how to stop it,_ )

“No fever,” she announced, pulling away from him. “Have you been out in the sun much?”

“Let the man go lay down, Varya,” Roman said, probably glad to have a chance to be free of his presence for a while. They hadn’t spoken plainly to each other since the afternoon Vitaly died, and now a strange tension stretched between them. “God knows you’re raising my blood pressure, and I’m not the one getting fake engaged.”

Varya said, flippant as she pleased, “You can go too, if you’re going to have that attitude.”

Roman popped a grape from a bowl on the table into his mouth. He grinned, then, and said, “If you insist.”

The brunette’s eyes narrowed. “Very clever.” She turned back to Ilarion and reached up, cradling his cheek. “If you feel unwell, Ilya, go lay down. I can’t have you under the weather.”

A fresh sense of dread welled up inside of him. He felt, very suddenly, as if he were standing on a cliff; a dark, great void that stretched out in front of him, endless. A precipice of change, the edge of a canyon with no bottom in sight,

( _she holds his face in her hands. the hard lines of her expression are so sharp they could cut him. he feels sick,_ )

and from the dark he heard the whisper,

 _( ‘don’t you trust me, ilya?’_ )

‘ _Don’t you miss me, Ilya?_ ’

( _‘i’m your twin. don’t you trust me?’_ )

 _‘Don’t you miss your father?_ ’

“Ilya.”

His eyelids fluttered. Varya was watching him, her brows furrowed in concern, and from across the table, Roman studied him.

“What?” he said, his mouth dry as cotton, and she frowned.

“We lost you,” she replied. There was a softness to her tone that had been missing the last few days; a glimpse of who she had been with him before.“Maybe you really _are_ falling ill. Why don’t you head home, and Roman and I can finish up here?”

Ilarion hesitated, and then nodded. “Yes, I will then. You are sure you will be fine to finish the preparations without me?”

His twin set the tie down on the table again and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. She walked him to the front door of the club, giving his arm a little squeeze; her gaze flickered up to his again.

She looked like she wanted to say something. Ilarion _knew_ the look on her face, even if she tried to stay unreadable even to him. She couldn’t hide it from him if she wanted. He’d seen Roman Sionis coming at them from a mile away in her expression, all those weeks ago, when he’d told her to keep it business only.

“What is it, Varushka?” Ilarion asked. She rested her cheek on his shoulder.

“I just worry about you,” she said after a moment. “What will you do without me?”

She was sounding more American by the day. What little traces of her accent remained were more subtle now, the lingering of some of her consonants or the way she parsed out each word more often in favor of contractions. She was becoming a stranger to him. Ilarion tucked some of her hair behind her ear and leaned down to kiss her forehead.

( ‘ _don’t you trust me?’_ )

He said, “Wait for you to come and visit.”

Varya laughed. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed both of his cheeks, before burying her face into his neck; when Ilarion wrapped his arms around her, he was reminded of how tiny she was. Tiny, and fragile, and at one point she needed him. _No longer,_ he thought absently, tightening his arms around her. She laughed again, a little breathless this time.

“I can’t breathe,” she teased, squirming. “You’re too strong.”

He released her, although reluctantly. He wanted to say, _I love you, don’t you know that?_ He wanted to say, _I’ve only ever wanted what would make you happy._ He wanted to say, _You are so dear to me_.

He said, “I will see you tomorrow, at the party, yes?”

Varya nodded. Her eyes seemed sad, but the smile on her face remained. “You are so dear to me,” she murmured. “Please do not fall ill.”

Ilarion smiled ruefully at her—of course she would say what he was thinking, she always had—and pushed open the door of the club before the sadness welling up inside him could convince him he needed to stay. He could not shake the dread, clinging to his bones, a permafrost seeping deep into his core. When the blinding sunlight of the day split through his skull, and the door clicked shut behind him, he thought again of all the things that he wanted to say and would not.

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

“Did he seem strange to you?” Varya asked, looking at Roman.

He _did_ think about it, for just a moment, even if he was trying to spare as little brain power to the other Astakhov twin as he could. If anything, he thought Ilarion seemed to have resigned himself—though to what, he couldn’t have said for sure. Everyone was fucked if they were expecting Roman to be the translator of Ilarion’s stilted emotional repression.

“Not really,” he replied after a moment, and shrugged. “I guess he may have seemed a little out of it.”

“I worry about him,” she murmured. “Ilya is the most sensitive of the two of us, you know. A _real_ empath.”

Roman snorted, half out of shock and half out of amusement at the absurdity of her statement. “Come again?” He arched a brow upward. “Sorry, to be clear—we _are_ talking about your brother, correct? You know, the one that broke a man’s face for talking badly about you one time in passing conversation?”

Varya watched him with a little bit of amusement playing across her face. She said, “The very same. You just do not know him that well, Romy, but Ilya is truly like a radio transmitter. He takes in and he puts out emotion, and most people just put it out.” She shrugged. “Besides, are you trying to act as though you weren’t going to have Zsasz do the exact same thing to Bianchi before Ilarion stepped in?”

Roman made a little noise. He didn’t want to say that it made sense. It didn’t make him anymore sympathetic to Ilarion’s troubles, anyway. He shuffled some of the ties to the side. “Well, I don’t think he seemed any stranger to me than he normally is.”

Varya _tch’d_ her tongue. He felt a little smile tug at his lips.

“You sound like a little rattlesnake. Like you’re about to bite me, but you smartened up at the last minute.” He grinned and reached up, touching her lip with his thumb. _Mine,_ he thought absently. The mantra had become a buzzing in his head now, a neon **NO VACANCY** sign hung permanently in the motel of his skull.

Her gaze flickered to his mouth and then back to his eyes. “My mother used to do that to us all the time,” she replied. “I suppose I adopted it.”

“It’s cute.”

Varya did the sound again, this time certainly involuntarily, and gave him a little side-eye as she turned back to her very pressing work: selecting flower arrangements. She said, “This is an interesting flattering tactic you’ve picked up. Most people do not find snakes cute.”

“Nobody’s like me, baby.”

Roman popped another grape into his mouth and turned from her, striding to the center of the Black Mask’s main room. He felt light. Lighter than he had in a long time, anyway. He thought he might have reached the stage of fury that was something close to nirvana—what _if_ Nikita Astakhov was alive? Who _fucking cared_ , anyway? He didn’t want to think about that. He only wanted to think about this stupid fucking charade, which was actually funny at this point (Zsasz? Dating someone like Ilarion? _Getting married to someone like Ilarion_? It was comedy gold.) and the way that Varya had so easily and comfortably slid into his life. It was like he’d been saving a little spot for her all along, and now she was here, exactly where she was supposed to be: with him.

“Let’s get a chandelier,” he announced suddenly, turning back to her. “A really big fucking chandelier. Right here. Yeah?”

“Are you getting sick, too?” Varya was laughing, even if her words sounded like they were supposed to be irritated. She crossed her arms over her chest when he started walking back to her, reaching for her. “You’ve been dragging your feet with this the whole time. Where is this newfound enthusiasm coming from?”

“Can’t a man be excited to throw a fake engagement party to lure a Russian mobster from the shadows with his girl?” He uncrossed her arms and set one of her hands on his shoulder, holding the other in his own. Roman swayed her to the music in his mind; a leisurely, casual tempo, one that dictated no pace except the one that he wanted.

_Mister Sandman, bring me a dream, make her the cutest that I’ve ever seen!_

He continued, “If Roman Sionis is throwing a party, you had best believe it’s going to be the best fucking party of the century. Until the next one I throw, anyway.”

Varya laughed and let him move her, the resistance having fled from her limbs. Roman drank in moments like these, where she went and did what he wanted her to; he felt more in control of himself and his surroundings than he had in over a month.

“Your girl, am I?”

Roman leaned down and kissed her, the hand not holding hers pulling her closer by her hip.

“You were my girl the moment you walked into this club, V,” he said, and she sighed a little, and there it was: that little monster in Varya that wanted to be _wanted,_ desired in a hungry, vicious way, and she preened under his attention. He felt a thrill at the realization he knew her Achilles heel.

She asked, “Nothing is wrong, then?” and he slowed his movements to watch her. Well, watch her watch him—she was studying him, her dark eyes searching his face for any give away of what she thought he was hiding from her.

 _That you_ are _hiding from her_ , that voice in his head said. _Remember? That she was so fucked up when she killed her dad she didn’t even kill the right one. Probably._

“Nothing’s wrong,” Roman announced, maybe a bit more forcefully than he had wanted, as she was right there in his space already. He said again, more softly assured this time, “Nothing’s wrong, kitten. I’m just—enjoying the moment for what it is. Living in the moment, going with the fucking flow, you know. That shit.”

A pleased little smile was on her face. “Sure,” she replied, “that is good. But if something _was_ wrong, you would tell me?”

“Yes,” Roman said, still swaying with her.

“Do you promise?”

“Wh—Yes! What kind of man do you take me for?”

They had stopped swaying. Varya leaned up on her tiptoes now, and a fistful of her dark hair slid over her shoulder; the scent of her jasmine shampoo washed over him, much the same the first night they had met, and she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. And kissed him, and kissed him, the way she did almost always, starved for him.

She said, softly against his mouth, “I don’t take you for a man, Romy. I take you for a devil.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

It was late. Roman’s eyes stung with the need for sleep. The curtains that usually hung over the window were drawn, and over the slope of Varya’s body next to him, he could see the lights of Gotham glimmering. He let his eyes unfocus until the lights blurred into a gentle fuzz. _I could sleep if I wanted to,_ he thought, as though putting that thought out in the universe might make it true. _I’m just staying up because that’s what I want to do instead._

He rolled onto his side; most of his vision was taken up by Varya’s dark, untamed mass of hair, cutting lines into the lights of the city. His hand reached without much thought and smoothed along the curve of her hip, the other brushing the hair away from her shoulder to plant a kiss there. Just a few weeks ago, he had been thinking that she was spoiled and delicious, impetuous enough to push all of her boundaries with him and then some. Now, all he could think about was how it felt to have her all to himself.

Tomorrow loomed in front of him; it filled up his vision, blurring the edges in static-y black, like the rush before the fall. Tomorrow they would be doing everything in their power to piss off what was, now Roman thought, almost assuredly Varya and Ilarion’s father. He wasn’t afraid of Nikita—how could he be?—but he did feel a sick, unpleasant anticipation knotting in the pit of his stomach. The last thing in the fucking world he wanted was to become well-acquainted with Nikita Astakhov. _In-laws,_ he thought absently.

Varya rolled onto her back to look at him. Her expression was clear, as though she hadn’t been sleeping at all, but staring at the lights, too.

“You are up late,” she said. Her voice was soft, though not with sleep; only because, perhaps, she had been quiet all this time. She brought his arm across her stomach, watching him, and he rumbled a noise of discontent.

“Just not very tired,” Roman replied, mimicking the thought from before; _could sleep if I wanted, but I don’t_. “I like looking at you.”

He kissed the curve of her shoulder, and up to the junction between where it connected to the smooth pillar of her neck. Her body-heat warmed against his face. His mind buzzed. He should have felt victorious, or something, but he just felt—

It was Varya’s turn to kiss him, now. The kiss was slow, and languid, and lacked the urgency with which she usually kissed him. He felt the tension of his shoulders loosen. For a second—just a second—all he thought about was the pressure of her teeth on his lip, the way she sighed against him, the feeling of her fingers carding through his hair before knotting.

“You are nervous about tomorrow.” She said it without the lilt of a question at the end. Roman felt the warm, shameful flood of emotion up in his throat, making his head hot. _Wicked_ , he thought, but bitterly this time. _She knows me too well._

“I hate when you do that.” He didn’t bother to hide the irritation in his voice. “You really like to kiss me right before you say something that you know would piss me off. ”

“Maybe,” Varya replied casually, and she smoothed her hand along his jaw. “If you want to think about it like that. I think about it as—I know it makes you feel good, and if you feel good you might be more willing to let me in.”

He made an affronted noise. “I am perfectly open and honest with you, at all times, about the things I feel. I’m—the _most_ honest—”

“I am scared,” Varya murmured, and it took all of the heat out of the irritation he might have felt about getting cut off. It took _everything_ out of him, to hear her say that, sucked the air right out of his lungs and wiped his mind blank.

 _Small,_ something in him said as he looked at her. She looked small, like she could be swallowed up by the bed at any moment, like maybe she wanted that to happen. The pull of her dark brows, the little parting of her lips as though she wanted to say something; these were things that lingered in the hollow of his chest, setting off alarm bells.

He said, very coherently and not at all unbalanced, “What?”

The brunette settled against the pillow. She brought his hand up to her face, pressing his palm against her cheek. Her eyes fluttered closed. She took what Roman could see was a deep, measured breath; the lines on her face lacked the little edge of cruelty they normally wore, the danger that had etched its way into her expression and made a permanent home out of her.

 _My mother was so beautiful,_ she had said the night that Roman had spent asking her all of the questions he could think of. _She was so beautiful, like light. I want to be beautiful like her._

“I am scared.” Her voice was quiet and her eyes did not open. Her words didn’t come from her chest; the sound of them was locked high in her throat, weak. “When I close my eyes, I see my Vita, holding his cut throat with his bloody hands and his dark mouth opens, but no words come out. Roman—”

He leaned down and kissed her, to stop the words coming out of her—and maybe to comfort her, too, he didn’t know. Roman only knew that he didn’t like hearing the words _I am scared_ from her, and that in the short, violent time he had known her, she hadn’t said it a single time before.

But _now_ —

“You’re mine,” he said, “and that means nobody gets to take you away from me.”

Roman couldn’t see what her face was saying anymore, not this close and not in the dark. But he felt the tremble of her lip against his mouth, and it filled him with a fresh wash of pride. His Varya, his wicked girl, dark girl, execute-a-man-at-point-blank-range-girl—soft, for him. He wanted these moments always, because it was getting something that no one else did.

_Not even Ilarion._

It was hard to reconcile this girl as the same one that had grabbed his shirt and said, _If you want me so bad, fucking act like it._

“Yes,” she murmured, sitting up a little. Roman let her move where she pleased, watching the outline of her slender form in the dark as she straddled his hips, the sheets slipping from her body and pooling at her hips. The lightest pressure against his hands drew him upward, until his arms wound around her waist, keeping her against him while he sat. “Yours,” she said, and kissed his jaw, skimming her fingers along the bare skin of his shoulder.

The humming in his brain thickened. Fatigue pricked at his nerve-endings. “You love me.” He spoke the words against the elegant jut of her collarbone, and her laugh vibrated against his mouth. “You can say it, you know. You _should_. Anyone who loves me should say it out loud to me, whenever the fuck the thought comes into their head.”

“Would it mean as much if I just came out and said what I was feeling all the time?” Varya asked. Her voice was lighter now, and it washed away the vulnerability from before. “I think you like puzzling me out, Roman. It would not be fun if I just gave you what you wanted, all the time.”

“I miss when you used to only call me Mr. Sionis,” Roman sighed. He splayed his hand against the delicate notches of her spine, feeling the goosebumps rising in her skin. He rumbled comfortably, continuing, “You were such a respectable woman back then, V.”

“You don’t want a respectable woman.” In the dark, still, half-illuminated by the city lights of Gotham, with his eyes stinging for sleep, he could see the playful glimmer of her gaze, the curve of her smile.

He said, ducking his head to press his mouth to her neck, “I suppose I don’t.”

He didn’t.

“I don’t think I can sleep.” In his hazy exhaustion, her voice sounded very far away from him; he hummed into the curve of her neck.

“We should tire you out, then. A few things come to mind—”

She laughed and squirmed against him; when he dragged his teeth along her pulse point, her nails dug a little into his shoulder. Tiny scintillas of pleasure licked at the base of his neck, anticipatory. He pulled back to grin wickedly at her in the dark.

“Liked that, did you?”

With his hand on the small of her back, Roman shifted their positions to rest her back against the bed; it was her turn to be compliant now, watching him with a glimmer of amusement as he traced a leisurely trail along the dip of her sternum.

“Don’t know why you bother wearing anything to bed,” he murmured into her skin, sliding a hand below the silky camisole.

Varya sounded a little breathless when she replied, “I told you, it won’t be as fun if you do not have to work for it. It is—the principle of the matter.”

“Spoil sport.”

Her laughter delighted him. Roman moved back up and kissed her jaw, feeling the remaining tension flee her body, just that easy; she turned her head and brushed their noses together. The clock on her phone, just on the side table and only barely in his field of vision, viciously reminded him that the witching hour had arrived.

“You are my love,” Varya said softly, “Mr. Sionis.”

He resettled just between her legs. An open-mouthed kiss on the small stretch of warm skin, just below the bottom of her camisole, had her sighing prettily.

“You were _so_ fucking close that time, pet.” He said the words against the slope of her hip; his fingers gripped her thigh, just the amount of pressure he knew that she liked to reward him with another delicious sound. He wanted her to say the words: he wanted to hear _I love you_ , to feel the devotion in her voice, but for once he found himself not minding the challenge. From below, Roman fixed her with his gaze.

Her breathlessness betrayed her when she said, “Harder to crack than you anticipated?”

“Not so much,” Roman hummed into the soft skin of her inner thigh, “but I have a couple of options to get what I want out of you.”

◇─◇──◇────◇ NO DAYS REMAIN ◇────◇──◇─◇

“What do you think?”

Roman gestured to the exceptionally elaborate chandelier, placed to hang above the main floor of the club. It was a brilliant starbust of a chandelier, just rich enough to mimic the Astakhov’s taste for luxury and not so fucking ugly that Roman thought he’d get tired of looking at it. It wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb with everything else in the club, anyway.

Zsasz stared at it from a little ways away for a moment. He turned his gaze to Roman, as though he were trying to figure out how _Roman_ felt about it. “It’s really fucking big.”

“I know,” Roman replied. He couldn’t keep the pleased grin off of his face. “Has to be the biggest chandelier you’ve ever seen, right? Everyone’s going to be so fucking jealous. Stupid fucks.”

Zsasz laughed, allowing the grin to slip over his face, his shoulders relaxing a little. He walked over to where Roman stood now, and craned his neck to see the chandelier from below. “Of course they will, boss. Nobody’s got anything like this in Gotham.”

They stood in relaxed silence for a moment, Roman thinking about all of the people Varya had gone out of her way to invite and how they’d all be sitting in his club wishing they were him.

“It’s weird to think that it’s today,” Zsasz said after a moment. Roman’s eyes landed back on him, studying him through the yellow tint of his glasses. Zsasz felt the scrutiny, sweeping over him like a thick wave, and shifted on his feet. “The party, and everything--”

“Well, once it’s done it’ll be done with, for good. This whole big fucking charade, anyway. And then things will be back to normal--just you, and me.” _And Varya,_ he thought absently, though it seemed so inherent already that he wasn’t urged to say it aloud. Roman waved his hand and Zsasz nodded, and then paused again. Roman could sense the hesitation in him and his eyes narrowed. “What is it? Fucking spit it out, then.”

“Did you tell her?” Zsasz asked, lowering his voice even though Varya wasn’t even in the building. “About what Ilarion said?”

Roman scoffed. “Do you think I want a fucking wine stem stuck through my eyeball? No, I’m not a fucking _idiot_ , Zsasz.”

“But if it _is_ him--”

“Shut up,” Roman snapped. The irritation bloomed in his chest, hot and sticky. His gaze flickered to the handy men finishing packing up their tools. He lowered his voice, too, biting out, “You don’t say a fucking word about it, Zsasz.”

“I _won’t_ ,” Zsasz insisted. “But _if--_ ”

The front doors to the club swung open, letting in a vibrant array of light. His paramour swept into the main room, letting the door swing shut behind her and pushing her sunglasses up out of her face and onto the top of her head.

“Shut the fuck up,” Roman hissed to Zsasz, and then planted a wide smile on his face as soon as she came in past the archway. Smooth, cool, collected, certainly not harboring dark secrets. “Ilarion all set to go then, kitten?”

“Yes, though he is being _such_ a drag,” Varya sighed, setting her bag down on one of the tables. As she made her way over to them, a little smile played across her face. She looked fresh and more alert than she had in the last few days; a healthy color had returned to her cheeks, and her soft doe-eyes held their usual warmth. She looked at Zsasz. “Hello, darling. No cold feet, I hope?”

“Nope,” Zsasz replied, his eyes lingering on Roman for a little too long. “Cool as a fucking cucumber.”

“Well, it’s nice that everyone’s turning their attitudes around,” she said, seeming assuaged for a moment. She pressed a kiss to Roman’s cheek. “And things here?”

“Good. Great,” Roman replied, grinning and pointing. “See the chandelier?”

Varya glanced up admiringly, and then said with all sincerity, “It’s lovely. It reminds me of the one that your friend has. In the other club, you know?”

Roman’s expression fell. That dumb fucking Greek? There was no way. “Well, this one is clearly way bigger. And definitely cost more.”

“Are you sure it’s bigger? I think they are at the least comparable in size,” she mused as she stepped back to look at it. When her gaze dropped back to him, she pouted her lips out. “What, you’re not happy with it?”

“Does this look like the face of a man who’s happy with his chandelier?” Roman demanded, looking at Zsasz. The blonde watched his face for a moment and then turned back to Varya.

“That’s pissed off, at the least.”

“At _least_!” Roman yanked his glasses off of his face and passed a hand over his eyes. “ _Fuck_. You--” He snapped his fingers at one of the handymen. “Don’t put that fucking ladder away. Get it back out and take this shit out of here. And tell your boss I want the biggest fucking chandelier--”

As Roman left their little triangle to really get a good look at the handyman while he yelled, Varya turned her gaze back to Zsasz. There was a question there, but Zsasz had an idea of what it was and he didn’t want to answer it.

“You are sure you will be alright tonight?” she asked him, reaching out. He flinched instinctively when the movement sprung the corner of his vision, clearing his throat. But she didn’t apologize; she merely gave his shoulder a little squeeze.

He said, “Yeah, we’re all good here. On my end. Your brother isn’t?”

“He’s been awfully negative,” she replied, over the sound of Roman detailing exactly how pissed he was going to be if he didn’t ‘get the biggest fucking chandelier in Gotham city, you dumb fuck’. “But it’s impossible for me to read him sometimes. You know, as twins, we should be intrinsically linked, but--the only one that’s been able to read the other is Ilarion, to me.”

“Well, Ilarion is a big fucking puzzle box, isn’t he?”

Varya smiled ruefully at him and picked up her purse from the table. “I’m going to start getting ready.”

Zsasz opened his mouth to say something when Roman’s sharp voice bit out his name from across the room.

“Zsasz!” Roman had whirled around to look at them. He was fuming. Varya gave Zsasz’s arm one last squeeze before she began heading for the elevator. “Tell the gentleman what will happen if we don’t get this piece of shit chandelier out of here in the next hour.”

“Sure thing,” Zsasz replied, also making his way over. He felt a wave of relief that the conversation with Varya was done. “C’mere, let’s you and me have a chat. Just a talk, that’s all…”

Varya paused where Roman was standard, smoothing her hand over the lapel of his jacket. “I did not mean to ruin your fun,” she said sweetly. “The chandelier _is_ lovely.”

Roman smoothed some of his hair back from his face, strands of it having dropped into his vision--probably from the vigorous yelling. He said, “It’s good, we’re cool. Everything’s good,” and took her face in his hands, planting a firm kiss on her forehead. “I’m a problem solver, baby, nothing that can’t be fixed with a little elbow grease.”

“It would be fine to keep it,” she reasoned, and he held up his hands to stop her from going any further.

“None of that, please. You worry about getting ready, and I’ll handle this. ‘Kay?”

She was trying not to look too amused, he thought, before she turned and disappeared into the hallway that led to the elevator. Roman took a moment--just one tiny, little moment--to re-center himself. Everything was fine. Everything was good. He was _good_.

With a deep breath, he slid his glasses back onto his face and turned back to face the remaining handyman.

“Now,” he said, “start taking that fucking chandelier down, or you’ll be joining your friend in his chat.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

Ilarion was surprisingly well put-together, all things considered. You wouldn’t hear it coming out of Roman’s own mouth, but in large crowds when the occasion called for it, he cleaned up well and played the part he needed to; no amount of schmoozing assholes would throw him off of his game. Everyone was dressed--well, _formally_ to say the least--and the replacement chandelier, bigger and better than ever, glittered in the dead center of the room, a permanent topic of conversation, which Roman loved.

It was probably the only _good_ thing about Ilarion, and the only comfort was that Roman knew he was capable of faking it til he made it all the way through, so his hand on the small of Victor Zsasz’s back and the meaningful glances they shared were all play and not, in any way, real.

By the time the engagement party was in full swing, Roman found himself _almost_ relaxing. Everyone was drunk, and everyone was laughing, and there was not a single person who didn’t look like they were enjoying themselves. Anybody who was anybody was in attendance, with some international folks that Roman wasn’t personally familiar with, but that greeted Ilarion with all of the familiarity of people who had been afraid of the Astakhov name for a very long time.

“Aren’t you going to ask me to dance?”

Varya’s voice was almost drowned out by the deafening noise of music chatter. He almost wouldn’t have heard her, if he hadn’t been checking his watch wondering when the fuck she was going to make it down; Roman planted a smile firmly on his face and turned to greet her.

“I have been waiting very patiently for you to come down, you know,” Roman said, admiring the deep red off-the-shoulder dress she’d had tailored to fit her perfectly. “And the wait was _well_ worth it, kitten. I like you in red.”

“Flattery will get you everything,” Varya replied, her tone playful. She took his hand, pulling him out to the middle of the dance floor; once his hands were on her waist, she rested her hands on his shoulders and peered over them. Absently, she continued, “I thought something a little darker--I don’t want to take any attention away from Ilarion and Zsasz. It _is_ their ‘engagement’, after all.”

Roman’s hand thumbed the spot, nearly to her hip, where the slit of the dress reached. “Yes, you’re practically a nun, all buttoned up. Blending in with the wallpaper. Are you sure you couldn’t show a little more skin, you know, like a normal person?”

Varya eyed him. “I said I didn’t want to draw attention, not that my fashion was going to suffer for it.”

“Well, I’m glad you kept your standards, at least.”

She shot him a look, and then said, “The chandelier is bigger.”

“I did give them a big incentive to get that stupid one uninstalled and the new one put up in time for the party.” Ducking his head, Roman murmured, “You’re staring at them.”

Varya’s cheeks flushed. “I just want to make sure it’s going well.” Ilarion had leaned down to murmur something into Zsasz's ear as another guest approached them; maybe letting him know who he was. Zsasz cleaned up well, too, Roman thought absently.

He tugged her closer to him, turning her chin back to him. “You’re going to make Zsasz crack if you keep boring a fucking hole into him,” he murmured, “and you haven’t even told me one time what an amazing, incredible, stupendous, immaculate--”

“I love you,” Varya said.

Roman stopped their swaying. He thought he had certainly heard her wrong; a trick of the music, drowning them out, the alcohol from his drink (one glass of champagne, sure), the shimmering light from the chandelier above.

_I love you._

Varya, watching him from the bathtub with her eyes half-lidded in relaxation, _good morning, lover_ ; Varya, drenched in blood, her knuckles white around the handle of a knife, _I’ll kill you too_ ; Varya, clutching his shirt, the monster of her grief shaking the bones of his skeleton, _I have to look_.

 _I love you_.

The brunette was watching him, her gaze clear, and she reached up and kissed him. It was a soft kiss, lacking urgency and instead taking its time.

“Is that what it takes to get you to stop talking?” she said playfully into his mouth, and the little jab was a kickstart to his system. The surprise of it swept out of his bones, just like that, and he took her hand in his and kept her flush against him.

“No,” he replied casually. “I was just going to say that I already knew that.”

“Oh? Well, then I don’t know why I bothered to say it.”

“It’s important to verbalize your feelings.”

She laughed, resting her cheek against his chest. Roman felt a pleasant warmth spread through his chest. _This_ was what he had been waiting for. _This_ was the sensation of victory that had been missing. The final puzzle piece.

 _Mine_.

The sentiment vibrated loudly in his skull, like sitting in a church bell tower as the bronze swung back and forth. His arm around her tightened.

“Your brother will be very disappointed,” Roman mused. “He thinks I’m vicious.”

Varya made a soft little noise. She pressed their palms together, splaying their fingers out against each other. She said, “You _are_ vicious.”

His voice was dry. “Thank you.”

“But so am I.” Varya ran her thumb along the lifeline of his palm, and he could see a little smile playing across her lips. “My partner can’t be less than I.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

In Roman’s opinion, the engagement party found itself to be extremely anti-climactic. There was no kicking in of the doors, no twist reveal of a guest actually working on Nikita Astakhov’s behalf. Varya said that she didn’t think there would be any response, least of all not before Dorian published his piece in the paper--which he promised to do diligently--but Roman had been, a little, hoping that the whole thing would resolve itself in the evening.

It didn’t, and when the last guest left, Roman let out a little breath of relief.

“Well, no killing tonight, boys,” he announced. He was in a good mood, all things considered; and he couldn’t wait to get his paramour upstairs to see what other ways he could get her to declare her absolute love and devotion to him. “Pet, are you ready to retire for the evening?”

“I am going to go home with Ilya,” she replied.

“Oh,” Roman said, not without disappointment. And then: “And why are you doing that?”

“We are going to have Vitaly’s funeral tomorrow morning, early,” Ilarion explained. “It is what he would have wanted.”

Roman frowned. He would have thought that Varya would want him there; he was trying not to be put-out by the idea that she hadn’t.

Her hand skimmed down his arm until she could interlace their fingers. “Will you come and pick me up tomorrow?” she asked him sweetly, as Ilarion drifted towards the front doors. “As soon as it’s done?”

“I could just come with you,” he said, as casually as he could. He didn’t particularly want to go sit through a funeral for Vitaly, but Varya had just confessed her love to him; didn’t she want him around?

“I…” Varya’s voice trailed off. “I think--it is important for me to do this by myself.” She paused again, and this time turned to him fully. She said, softer and sweeter, “After that, I’m all yours.”

 _Well, you aren’t doing it by yourself, you’re doing it with Ilarion, and you’re already mine,_ he thought, but he managed to bite his tongue before the words evolved from a thought to the sentence coming out of his mouth. “Alright,” he acquiesced after a moment. “What time, then?”

She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Noon?”

“Noon.”

One last kiss was pressed to his lips before she slipped out of his grasp, and like that, she was gone; the door swung shut behind the sight of Ilarion and Varya walking out of the club. Roman sucked his teeth and rocked back on his heels.

“When is Dorian publishing that piece?” Roman asked Zsasz, heading towards the elevator with the blonde matching him step for step. Zsasz watched him for a moment.

“Sunday, I think.”

“Good,” Roman replied. “That’ll give us one day of peace, at least.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

That was how Roman Sionis came to spend the first night, after a real and true, victory alone. The night came and went, and when the morning did the same, he popped a couple of advils in his mouth and told Zsasz to drive him up to the Astakhov manor. 

It would hopefully be the last time he really had to come here. After this, there was no reason why Varya could possibly want to stay apart from him; she _loved_ him, after all, and had become comfortable with the fact that her brother would not be happy about it. Or perhaps Ilarion had resigned himself to _that_. Regardless, Roman considered it quite good of him to be so flexible.

The drive up passed by quietly, and without incident; there was one text on his phone from Varya at around six in the morning, letting him know that they were heading out for the funeral, and then one letting him know they had made it back home. As they pulled up the drive, Roman pushed his sunglasses down his nose and peered out the window.

The grounds were still, and peaceful. Zsasz put the car in park, waiting just a moment too long to turn the car off for Roman to feel like the unsettled feeling he had in his stomach was a one-off.

“What’s wrong with this picture?” Roman asked, opening the car door. Zsasz did the same, stepping out around the front of the car and scanning the grounds.

“Nobody’s out,” he said after a moment. “Maybe they asked people to leave for the day, out of--respect?”

“Maybe.” Roman said the word, but it didn’t connect in his brain; his feet were already carrying him forward. The grounds were _empty_ outside, which was exactly what was wrong--no Astakhov men prowling the heavily manicured front grounds. Roman didn’t think Varya or Ilarion would have called off their men, even for this, considering the game they were playing.

He pushed on the front door, just for good measure. It was latched firmly. Feeling a bit of relief, he pressed down on the front latch and nudged the door open.

“V,” he called, feeling Zsasz lingering close behind him, “I’m here--”

His shoe hit something slick on the floor, nearly sending him falling over. He let out a little swear, glancing down. “What in the fuck--”

 _Red._ Alarm bells sprang in his head violently. Bright, fresh crimson red against the white marble of the floor. A sick, hot sense of dread washed over him.

That’s when it hit him: the thick, wet smell of blood, coppery and sweet, filling up his lungs. He was reminded of the way it had felt to have Varya, drenched in someone else’s blood and folded up against him.

“Zsasz,” he managed out, taking another step forward. The blonde swept around him, but even as Victor went to stop him Roman saw the trail of blood leading right up to a familiar face.

Alexei’s eyes were glassed over, empty. Blood had dried on his cheek where it had been dripping out of his mouth. He was slouched up against the wall, his throat cut open. Roman thought it looked like another mouth.

As Roman’s gaze drifted further down the hall, he just kept seeing _bodies._ One here, one there. Draped over the railing of the stairs, crumpled on the floor. Each one registered blank in his head at first, until he could tell it wasn’t Varya. 

“Where is she?” he started, his voice hoarse. His gaze was turned to the blonde now. “Zsasz, _where the fuck is she?_ ”

He looked at a loss; the helpless sound, the lack of an answer, that came from him filled Roman with fresh horror. 

“ _Find. Her,_ ” Roman bit out violently, grinding the bones of the words between his teeth. The bitter poison of them flooded his mouth, like biting down on aspirin instead of washing it back with water.

He was going to be sick.

 _I’ll fucking kill him,_ he thought, not knowing who he was talking about. But he did know, really, deep down. _I’ll kill every single fucking person until I find her. I’ll gut him like a fucking Halloween pumpkin, I’ll rip his fucking eyeballs out, I’ll_ \--

Zsasz had pushed his way into the ballroom, but Roman willed his legs forward until they carried him up the stairs, stepping over each dead body as he went. His heart thudded painfully in his chest.

He was only vaguely aware of shouting her name, again and again, with increasing rage; the world felt as though it were under water, each movement up the stairs laborious and weighted, all the way to the doorway of her room.

The pristine white sheets were drenched in red. The bed that he and Varya had been in, just a week or so ago; the metal smell of the blood, _fresh_ , rattled around his body. Roman felt the nausea well up in his throat.

A small piece of paper sat on the bed, folded up like a little gift. He held his breath and stepped forward, and when he reached for it, his vision swam.

He recognized Varya’s handwriting, shaky and uneven but recognizable. The note said, _Please come and join us for dinner, 8PM down at the docks, warehouse 2B._

And then, just below:

_Don’t come early._

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

When Varya awoke, it was because the sun was warming her face. She sat up, groggy and confused, glancing around the room. Roman had already gotten out of bed, it seemed, which was unusual; he never rose before her.

“Romy?” she called, coming to a stand and pulling his robe on over her. It smelled like him; the cologne he used that he knew she loved, a little bit like his aftershave. She remembered that she had told him she loved him last night, too.

Pushing the door open to the main room, Varya spotted a more full breakfast table than usual. Roman had planted himself in his usual spot, and Zsasz in his; but Ilarion was there too, reading the morning newspaper, his shirt from the engagement party loosened and the cuffs rolled up.

“You’re all here,” Varya said, feeling a little dazed; the words should have come out a question, but they didn’t. Three pairs of eyes turned to her. Roman came to a stand, but when he opened his mouth to speak, another voice cut him off.

“Good morning, Varushka.”

The timbre of it sent a strange feeling washing over her. She turned her gaze to the kitchen and saw, with no uncertainty, the lean, tall form of her father walking out. His gray beard was trimmed neatly, his hair perfectly coiffed; just as he always had been.

“Papa?” she asked. As soon as she thought she might be uncertain about this, that something was wrong, Roman spoke.

“Aren’t you surprised?” he asked, smiling at her. He reached to take the coffee pot from her father, and Nikita lifted a hand to say, _‘No, allow me,’_ and filled Roman’s cup for him, and in perfect Russian Roman said _thank you_. “A happy surprise, right? I brought him here just for you.”

Varya took a step forward. A surprise. A _happy_ surprise. Her love, her brother, her dear Zsasz, her father--all in one place. The only thing missing was her mother, but that was alright.

“Sit down, _kiska,_ ” her father said, pulling the chair out for her. “You must be hungry.”

“When did you get here?” she asked, feeling very oddly. The words felt slow and sluggish coming out of her mouth. She sat down at the table and looked at the coffee cup that was now in front of her; it was black, blacker than black.

“We can talk about my trip in a little bit, can’t we?” Nikita laughed. “I want to hear about how you have been doing.”

Varya looked at Ilarion, hoping for guidance. He seemed calm, and content, happier than he had been in a long time. She smiled tentatively.

“Aren’t you mad?” she asked, looking at her father. “Aren’t you mad at me?”

“No, _kiska,_ ” Nikita said, “I love you. You are the light of my life.”

The words gutted her, scooped her insides out like nothing. Varya’s eyes burned and welled with tears. “Do you mean that? It is-- that is all I have ever wanted from you--”

Nikita was watching her. His eyes were _blue blue blue_ , a gene that neither she nor Ilarion had inherited. She had missed them. The thought almost sickened her; but she _had_ , desperately. _All I ever wanted._

He said, “I love you, Varushka. You are so dear to me,” but as he spoke, his eyes and mouth welled with crimson. The blood spilled over his bottom lashes, running down his face.

Varya screamed. A copper taste bloomed in her mouth. She reached for Ilarion, but when she looked at him he had it, too; the blood, spilling out of his open mouth, hung slack in his skull.

And Roman, and Zsasz, and--

His mouth full of blood, Nikita said, “Why are you making so much noise?”

Varya closed her eyes tightly. She heard her father say again, “Varushka, _why are you making so much fucking noise_?”

A sharp pain split across the left side of her face. When she opened her eyes, she was not in the loft anymore. The world was a watercolor blur for a few agonizing moments; dark and fuzzy. A single fluorescent light hung above her. The table set before her was old, and empty, and the sharp bite of metal stung her wrists where they were planted in her lap.

Her father stared at her, his eyes-- _blueblueblue_ \--and gripped her chin. She was vaguely aware of the taste of blood flooding her mouth. _He hit me_ , she thought dazedly. _He’s here._

The fear settled in her, knotted her stomach. Whatever warmth the dream had given her was done, replaced with the cold, iron swell of her father’s presence.

His gaze swept over her. _Disgusted,_ she thought, familiar with the look. He said, “You never could shut up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _kiska_ \- kitten


	17. lacrymosa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Love is a game—yes? I think it is a drowning: Black willows and stars.” —Amy Lowell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL Y'ALL, I CANNOT BELIEVE IT. I've done it. I've actually written one (1) whole fic, that is chaptered and long, and coherent, and done. Those are the only bars I had to beat to impress myself.
> 
> There will be a little epilogue chapter, but that's all that's left!!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it, I had so much fun writing it. Thank you to everyone who has read through to the end (y'all are incredible) but thank you, ESPECIALLY, to my lovely [Starcrier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrier/pseuds/Starcrier), who was kind enough to love these idiots as much as I do and provide endless amounts of support as I babble about AU ideas and meaningless details; and, of course, to the light of my life and the love of my heart, [sithmarauder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithmarauder/pseuds/sithmarauder), whose ability to write not only inspires me every day but also whose gigantic heart gives me so much support and motivation!!
> 
> I'll stop babbling now. I'm emotional that I even made it this far into a fic, let alone finished it. Thank you so much, everyone!

“You have always been a tedious child, Varvara.”

Her father’s voice stuck to her skull, the English a straining juncture in his dialect. There was something violent and familiar in his movements, the way he straightened up in front of her, holding her chin; her father loomed, eclipsed. He had always been that way, in any room that he walked into, any space that he occupied. It was why it was sometimes hard for her to look at Ilarion. Her brother possessed the same kind of countenance, as though it were hereditary. _Astakhov men_ , Roman would say.

The weight of his hand pushed her back against the chair, so that she was looking up at him. Through the blur of her vision, she could make out his features. _I know you,_ she thought, hazy and vicious. _I know you, monster._

The static buzzed in her mouth, locked between her jaw. She blinked through a flurry of lights that splintered behind her irises.

“Papa-- _Kogda ty prishel?”_ The words felt like they spilled out of her mouth, slurring and blending together. He dropped his grip on her face and shook his hand off; red flecks wormed their way into her vision. She realized, very faintly, that it was not the words falling out of her mouth, but her blood. 

Her father stepped away from her. He seemed preoccupied with his watch; was he expecting someone? Was he waiting for something? Varya leaned forward, her head feeling heavy.

“Varushka?”

It was Ilarion’s voice. She struggled to look at the direction it came from, because the sound bounced around her, disorienting. Varya did not find herself capable of stopping the noise of distress--close to a whimper--that escaped her.

“Ilya,” she said, her voice feeling small, “I want to go home--”

He was just a little ways from her. If she tried hard--if she tried _very_ hard--she could see the shape of him, slumped in a chair. But his hands were behind him, handcuffed behind the back of the chair; hers sat limply, uselessly, in her lap. Her father still thought Ilarion was the greater threat. Now, when her body felt weighted by cement blocks, he was probably right.

“Stop talking,” her father said. “Your dose is smaller; you will feel just fine in a little while.”

A swooning little feeling washed over her, sending her heart thundering in her chest. She thought she might throw up. She tried to sit up straight again, hitting the back of her chair with a little _clink_ that seemed to echo for minutes at a time. He had done something; drugged her with something, and now the idea of being able to stand up on her own legs seemed far away.

He said, angrily, “Shut up,” but she hadn’t said anything. He was talking to the space beside her, crouched in her vision again. The smell of his cologne invaded her senses, mixing with the sweet, spiced scent of the clove cigarettes that he and Ilarion both favored. 

Varya blinked rapidly, trying to get her eyes to focus, and the irrational panic that flared up in her was almost too much to stand. Nikita said, “You tried to kill me, _kiska._ There are some things that are unforgivable, even if you repent.” She felt the pressure of his thumb on her lip more than she saw the movement, finding it hard to keep her eyes open. “Patricide is one of those things.”

He moved away from her again, and she rested her head back against the chair. She was so tired. She wondered if Roman was tired, too. She hoped he was furious.

“I am going to kill you,” her father said from the table, “and your brother will watch. Then, we will have dinner, just us and our guests.” He gestured to the other end of the table; when she followed the movement to where he was pointing, she felt panic fire violently in her neurons.

It was Vitaly. Her father had dug him up and sat him a few feet away from her. His dark eyes were milky with death, the color drained from his face, the open wound on his neck a second mouth. Agony and grief flowered in the hollow of her chest, and she closed her eyes tight when they burned with tears.

“ _Tch_ , enough of that.” Nikita’s voice was sharp. “It’s not like you to cry at the dinner table. America has made you soft.”

He set a small glass in front of her, and as it became easier and easier for her eyes to focus, she saw him sit down on the edge of the table. Ilarion was more clear to her, too; close, but not close enough. She lifted her hands weakly and dropped them back into her lap, heavy.

“I have another surprise,” her father said, lowering his voice. “Your _papik_ is coming, too. Isn’t that nice? He’ll have gone to all this trouble, for nothing.”

“No.” The word left her mouth distressed, frayed at the edges. “Not Roman, please--”

“Yes, Varushka,” her father said, softly now, brushing the hair from her face. “Yes, Roman. You spoiled yourself for him, and for what? For him to see you as you really are: helpless, and useless, and pathetic, and then he will watch you die too. And do you know how I’m going to kill you?”

 _Please_ , Varya thought around the desperate ache in her chest, _please don’t make them watch me die._

“I made you a special drink.” He adjusted the glass on the table, almost lovingly; but she knew that it wasn’t. She had seen him do the same gesture, the object not mattering, in their own home since she was a child. It was his neuroses, not an attention to detail. “The same drink you tried to give to me, and you gave to your _dyadya_ instead.”

“Papa,” Varya tried again, swallowing back the blood, “ _pozhaluysta_.”

He stood from the table. Each minute that passed cleared her vision and her mind a little more. She moved her tongue in her mouth to exercise a little bodily autonomy, spitting blood out onto the ground. She wondered if this was really where she was going to see the end of her life: a glass of rat poison poured down her throat by the man who was supposed to love her, in front of the men who did.

All of the girls she had been once, would be, and was now, intersected violently. A realization that was sudden, like death. _I know you, monster._

She looked over at Ilya. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. Varya wanted, more than anything, to be able to hold his hand.

“No begging, Varya,” Nikita said, his voice stern as he looked at his watch. “That’s below you as an Astakhov.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

The mask felt heavy on his face.

It was a good kind of weight; the dense, dark wood was snug against his bones, the smell familiar. When Roman put it on, he thought with a bit of strange bitterness, _Hello, dad_.

Though his face felt warm, the air at the docks was bitingly cold. Fall had arrived in Gotham in full swing with unrelenting force, and wherever the air could reach his skin it sunk in, nice and deep. The metal roof of the warehouse pierced the night; though clear, with no clouds in the sky, the moon was new and offered no help.

The front doors of the warehouse were open. They yawned, a small sliver of cold light cutting across the damp pavement. From the doorway, the very faint, static sound of classical music played, light and mournful, rattling around inside Roman’s head.

 _He_ was waiting for them: and while Roman could just as easily send in a crowd of thugs to clear out the warehouse, and _maybe_ Varya would come out of it alive, he wanted to make sure that he saw this end himself.

“Keep them out here,” Roman said, not turning his face to Zsasz. As he gripped the weight of the gun, it relaxed him; these things which kept him grounded, these things which left him tethered to the earth, he held onto until his knuckles tingled, numbing. “Don’t let anyone fire without my say.” He did not need to look at the blonde to know what he looked like: the hard lines of his face sharper, the set of his jaw, taut and tensed, resolute in the orders he was being given.

There had been times before when Roman had thought, _how did I get here?_ , his legs carrying him to a new location as his mind drifted elsewhere. Plenty of times, he felt foggy; the world a raucous, unforgiving symphony, disjointed and rupturing behind his eyes, and he would end up somewhere quiet without knowing when or how he had brought himself there.

But now, though he felt the venomous rage bubbling inside of him, eating away at his insides, his mind felt clear as he made his way toward the warehouse, the watch on his wrist glimmering with the hand on the eight. He thought, if it was Nikita Astakhov in there, all the better. He thought, if Varya was returned to him in anything less than mint condition, he would make sure to drag the man’s life out to the very bitter, black, cold end. He thought, _I’m going to fucking eat you raw, Nikita Astakhov_.

The warehouse itself was packed with crates; of what, Roman couldn't care less about, but they were tall and reached almost to the ceiling, winding in zig-zag patterns that created a labyrinth. Walking between them blocked out most of the light, which came from a single fluorescent that dangled above the center of the room.

He flicked the safety off of his gun. A sense of eerie calm had settled over him. His heart was slow, and steady, mimicking the gentle, heavy pressure of the wood pressed against his face. _I am who I’ve always been,_ the voice inside his head said, quiet amidst the sounds of Roman’s footfalls on the floor.

And then, very politely: “Is that you, Sionis?” The voice was thick, and dark. It drifted from somewhere in the middle of the crate maze, barreling out the sound of the sad, singing violins. “I only invited you, so if it is someone else, we are going to have a problem.”

Roman said, “I would never bring a plus one without being told.” _I’ll light this whole fucking warehouse up, you dumb fuck._

The man laughed. He seemed to be pleased with that answer. Roman’s teeth ground against each other violently as he took another corner. Each one was a little bit of torture, as though he might be faced with the scene that he desperately did not want: Varya, slaughtered, propped up like one of the taxidermy-ed betrayers her father so liked to dine with.

“Did you hear, _kiska_?” The man said, to someone who wasn’t Roman, and his voice was like a swoon. “I told you he would come for you.”

Roman passed another corner. He found himself faced with another dark wall of crates, pushing him ever inward, like he was passing through the insides of some great, wet beast.

“Oh, that is not very nice, Vitaly. I think Sionis is a perfectly fine gentleman, even if he is a little late.”

Roman’s stomach did a strange, apprehensive flip. Vitaly, buried and dead? Vitaly, throat gouged and jaw snapped? Vitaly, who haunted Varya’s quiet moments with something that he could not say because of the blood falling out of his mouth?

His grip on the gun tightened. He rounded one last corner before he saw, at last, the man who had decided to single-handedly incur the wrath of Roman Sionis.

He was tall; that was the first thing that Roman noticed. Tall, his silver hair combed back from his face, his beard streaked with black. His face was sharp, his mouth curved in an uneven smile like broken glass that contrasted the red staining his shirt and his hands. He stood behind a long wooden table, and on one side of him Ilarion sat and on the other, Varya. At the head of the table, Vitaly’s corpse took his grievous place of honor.

Roman did not need an introduction. He recognized him by the cruel cut of his eyes. The man in the polaroid on Varya’s vanity, gripping a young Ilarion’s shoulder so hard that his fingers creased the boy’s shirt.

He said, “Hello, Nikita.”

“I cannot believe that it has taken so long to finally meet you,” Nikita Astakhov said, that maddening half-smile making Roman’s skin prickle. He, too, had a gun, which was held loosely in his hand. “We are practically blood, by now. And—look at you! Dressed for the occasion.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I suppose my daughter does have a lot of explaining to do.”

Roman’s gaze fixed on Varya. She made a soft, agonized sound when she saw him, as though she were not comforted at all by his arrival. Nikita hushed her and—with all of the gentleness of a father—crouched down to her level and brushed the hair from her face. When her head turned to look somewhere, anywhere that wasn’t Roman, Nikita pressed the barrel of the gun against her cheek and forced her face forward. It occurred to Roman that she had been drugged, the haphazard way she held herself nothing reminiscent of the girl that he knew; and she had never seen him, not like this.

“Do not cry, Varushka,” he murmured. “It is just Roman. You see? Don’t you love him? It is just his face. The scales have fallen from your eyes, like Saul. Now you see.” He fixed his gaze on Roman then, the pupils of his eyes devouring the brutal blue of his irises. Roman could not stop staring at the gun pushed against Varya’s face. Nikita said, to Roman, “ _I_ see you, Roman Sionis.”

Disgust welled inside of him. He pushed the words out of his mind and tried to stay focused on taking in the situation. Ilarion was bound, too, his hands cuffed behind his back and around the sides of his chair. But his head lolled, slack and loose, in his neck; he continued to try and lift it to open his eyes. Ilarion said something in Russian, his voice raspy and thick, watching Roman through his dark lashes. Roman watched him too, for a long heartbeat, before he turned his gaze back to Nikita.

There was no world, no outcome, in which Roman would tolerate anything less than walking away from this with Varya.

“Nikita.” His voice felt like a stranger coming out of his body, spilling out through the skeletal grin of the mask on his face. “Give her back to me.”

“Oh, I do not think so,” Nikita replied gently, coming to a stand. Varya’s gaze looked clearer now, but her brows still pulled together when she looked at him. “If there is something you should never do, Roman, it is interrupting a father while he is punishing his child. You will understand, when you have them yourself. But—” He stopped, and then smiled a little, almost to himself. “You may certainly have her when I am done.”

He wanted to litter Nikita’s stupid fucking face with bullets. But each time his system jump-started with adrenaline, ready to do it, Roman saw the silver glint of Nikita’s gun pressed against Varya’s temple, and the glass of dark blue liquid sat on the table in front of her.

“Big decisions have big consequences,” Nikita murmured, though Roman could not tell who he was speaking to. He watched as the Russian picked up the glass of liquid and inspected it. He said, “In Russia, you normally finish off your meal with a drink, but we are in America. So we will do like Americans, yes, Varya?” He made a little gesture with the glass towards Roman, as though to toast to him. “ _Zdorov'ye!_ ”

Nikita brought the glass to Varya’s mouth. She turned her head away, weak but continent, though her mobility was limited. 

Desperate, she said, “Roman, please,” but he didn’t know what she was asking of him. He didn’t know what she wanted him to do. All of the times that he thought he knew what she wanted, and she did something else, something wild and feral: they haunted him now, reminding him that the only person that Roman would ever truly know was himself.

There had to be something. Roman Sionis was never without an option. Nikita had to have something, anything—

_Varya, leaned in for the jugular, watching Ilarion with her dark, cruel eyes. “Father would have always preferred his one child, his son, and I was poisoning you against him and he hated that, and that is why you could not look at him when he died.”_

Ilarion said Roman’s name. His voice was thick. His eyes looked tired. Roman waited; _just say something, you stupid fuck, just tell me what the fuck I’m supposed to do._

The brunette didn’t. He just watched Roman, his eyes quiet, and exhausted. A fresh, cold sense of dread settled over Roman, like a blanket.

He leveled his gun on Ilarion. Nikita paused, his dark eyes, pupils blown wide, narrowing.

“I’ll kill him,” Roman said, watching Nikita, biting out the venomous words. _No bargains. No world where I don’t leave with her._ It was a mantra now, churning in his mind, over and over again. “I’ll shoot his fucking brains out right now, Nikita. I’ll put a bullet right through his fucking head. Give her to me.” 

“No.” Varya’s voice hitched, agonized. “No, Roman, please—”

She would forgive him. She would see that Roman would do, could do, anything to keep her, if he was pushed to it.

His voice was tight and low when he continued, “Give her back to me, or I’ll fill his fucking skull with lead right now.”

“Oh,” the Russian replied. His brows furrowed. He set the glass down; his head cocked, as if he were listening to something, some _one_ , that wasn’t there. He said, “Yes, my love, I trust you. I trust you,” to no one in particular. 

And then he pulled the gun away from Varya’s head, pointed it at Ilarion, and fired.

Roman could not think around the sound; the gun fired _once, twice, three_ times into Ilarion’s face, a metal heartbeat, the same way that Varya had cleaned off Bianchi’s face. Except Nikita was closer to Ilarion, physically, than Varya had been to Bianchi. Except Nikita could surely see that his son was dead, after the first shot, and he kept going anyway.

Varya moaned, her words of grief blurring together in her torment, as though Nikita had fired on _her_ ; a string of _no no no no no_ that got more visceral with each syllable. Roman could not stand it.

Nikita turned to look at him, his expression startlingly wide and innocent with blood splattering his face. And he said, “What now?” as though he really wanted Roman’s guidance, as though the loss of his son was nothing, to no one, anywhere.

 _So what if he is dead?_ Varya had said to him. _We are all dead anyway_. _It doesn’t matter. He is nothing anymore._

Roman had wanted to keep Nikita alive, to torture him, to make him suffer. To make him regret. But it was clear, now, that the man could not: whatever part of the human body which was designed to regret had been cut out of him.

_If you want me and the guns and everything until the black end, start fucking acting like it._

Nikita turned to look at Varya now, and he said, “Stop that crying, Varya,” just before Roman fired a round of bullets into his chest.

The Russian’s body lurched with each impact before he slumped to the ground, hitting it with a sick, wet _thud_. The spray of her father’s blood littered Varya’s face, but it streaked with her tears. She struggled to her feet as Roman heard the sound of footsteps, more than just Zsasz, pushing their way into the warehouse.

He felt heavy. He thought, with purpose, _no bargains._ He thought, feeling dazed, _no world where I don’t leave with her._

Roman was a secondary audience to himself as he closed the distance between himself and Varya, where she clutched Ilarion’s dead body with her hands and sobbed, moaning his name, her face buried into his chest. His face was gone beyond recognition, his body slumped limp and lifeless in the chair.

 _My Ilya_ , she kept saying, over and over, even when Roman set his mask on the table, even when he pressed his hands to her shoulders. Her fingers wadded in the front of Ilarion’s shirt. She clung to him while she sat on her knees, her hands shaking and the wounded noises coming out of her wracking her entire body. _I cannot be without you,_ she cried. _What am I without you?_

“Don’t look,” Roman said, feeling numb, the same way he had when she had seen Vitaly. “Don’t look, V.”

The wretched, wrecked sound that came out of her when he pulled her away from her twin’s body almost made his gesture falter. He kept one arm looped firmly around her waist, unhooking her hands from the corpse’s shirt, pulling her away as she wept in his arms, her tormented wail splitting through his head.

She moaned Roman’s name, the sound choked, and thrashed weakly in his grip. He walked her past Zsasz, past the men that had flooded the warehouse, and out the front door of the warehouse where the night had grown cold and wet with rain.

He pulled his gloves off and pushed the hair from her face, rain drops darkening the color. Varya said, with all of the visceral grief in her chest, “I want to die—”

“Don’t,” Roman replied, his hands on her face, touching her wherever he could reach, where he could feel the heartbeat of her mortality under her skin like his own. “Don’t say that.”

She pressed her face into his chest and cried. “How?” she asked, and she sounded so lost that Roman felt it wash over him like a tidal wave. “How do I live? How do I, without my Ilya, without him? _Pozhaluysta, ya khochu umeret._ ”

He didn’t have an answer for her. He kept thinking about the way Nikita had fired rounds into the skull of his son, like he had realized too late that Ilarion was the one weakness that he had, a loose end that needed a speedy tying-up.

Varya was real, and breathing, her heart hammering against her chest so hard and fast that Roman could feel it against his own ribs. _Mine_ , he thought, tired. _Alive, and mine._

“I have you,” he said. He pulled her against him as she mourned. “I have you, now.”

◇─◇──◇────◇─────◇────◇──◇─◇

It was three days before she would say anything, to anyone, and she would only speak to Roman. She drifted, a wraith, between sleep and waking; occasionally, she would get up long enough to eat something, or to shower, but it was like the weight of her brother’s death sat so heavy on her that she could not bring herself to stand for very long.

That was fine. Roman let her lay, the curtains drawn dark in the loft’s master bedroom, while he made sure that the Astakhov mansion was cleaned out, scrubbed spotless. He didn’t think she would want to go back there; but just in case she did.

And it made it easier for Roman to get her things moved out of the house, too, not to be stepping over bodies on the way up the stairs as he had her clothes and belongings packed, along with all of the important files in the office. With the marble floors bleached clean, the curtains drawn, and plastic thrown over the furniture, he felt a little bit of peace finally closing up the mansion and watching it fade behind him in the distance.

There was no time for Roman to really think about how much grief she wore, his dark girl, his vicious girl. There was too much to be done, and now that her life was littered with corpses, Varya was the last remaining Astakhov. Roman, of course, would handle the entire transition. They were business partners as much as anything else, now; the weight of the Astakhov throne was carried by them both.

The irony that it was Nikita’s only daughter that would outlive him, and inherit his empire, was not lost on him.

He tried not to let the way that Ilarion had looked at him that night linger too much, but it did. It stuck to his ribs. It was the first and only time that Roman had thought he and Ilarion had reached an understanding with each other; that the only way Varya was going to come out of that warehouse is if he didn’t. For once, they had been on the same side.

Roman had just returned from speaking with Varya’s lawyers (and _God_ , what a fucking shitshow that was), the doors of the elevator sliding shut behind him as he strode into the loft. He was pleasantly surprised to see her sitting at the table, reading through the newspaper as she drank a cup of coffee. She wore his robe, even though in the time since Ilarion’s death she had lost so much weight that it looked like she was drowning in it; her hair was freshly washed and the dredges of sleep wiped from her face.

“‘Ilarion Nikitin Astakhov was a beloved brother, a man of infallible strength and devotion to his loved ones,’’ Varya read absently, as Roman set his keys down on the table and came to sit beside her. “‘He is survived by his twin sister, Varya Astakhova, who knows the world will suffer, even just a little, to be without him.’”

Absently, he twisted a lock of her hair around his finger, tucking it behind her ear. There was real, live color in her cheeks again, and the dulled, sunken film over her eyes was gone. “Dorian thought it would make you happy.”

“It does.” She set the paper down, turning to him. She looked more clear than she had in a long time. “Ilya was so tired.”

She had been angry with him in those first few days; convinced that had he not threatened to kill Ilarion, her father wouldn’t have shot him. He’d told her that there was no ending to the story where her father wasn’t going to absolutely fucking kill them both, and that she was being a stupid girl for thinking otherwise.

He said, “I know.”

She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, soft and slow. She said, “I love you, Roman,” against his mouth, and for the first time since Ilarion’s death Roman felt like she meant it. 

He turned her chair to him so that he could pull her from it and onto his lap, sliding his arms around her and keeping her pressed against him. He kissed her again, and again and again, the way that he knew she liked, the way that he did when he felt starved for her.

“You had the meeting with the lawyers this morning,” she said between kisses, combing her fingers through his hair. Each little gesture still carried with it the soft hesitancy of mourning, as though she didn’t know if she were allowed to enjoy anything anymore.

“They’re the fucking worst. How do you ever stand talking to them?” He felt a tiny amount of relief. Saying the words loaned him a bit of normalcy.

She laughed, the sound soft and a little stilted, but still genuine. “You have to be more than a man with them, Roman.”

“I am more than a man,” he replied, kissing the curve of her jaw. “I’m a devil, just like you said.”

Varya pressed their foreheads together. Her eyes fluttered closed; she seemed, for the first time in a long time, relaxed. It had never occurred to Roman how haunted she had been before. Now, he considered, they knew that the monster under the bed really _was_ gone.

“Yes,” she murmured softly, hand skimming along his throat. “A devil, and mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Kogda ty prishel - when did you get here?  
> papik - sugar daddy  
> kiska - kitten  
> dyadya - uncle  
> pozhaluysta - please  
> Zdorov'ye - cheers!  
> Pozhaluysta, ya khochu umeret - please, i want to die


	18. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Food hunger. Love hunger. Faith hunger. Soul hunger.  
> Who among us has not been hungry? Who among us has not been vulnerable? Who among us has not been a starving lion? Who among us has not been a prey animal? Who among us has not been a predator?" — Sherman Alexie, from “Sonnet, with Pride”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! It's done. I'm emotional. I swear I'm not crying, you're crying. I would love to make a big elaborate note on what it means to me to have finished this fic, but I've said everything I wanted to say 10000x already. If you had told me at the start of the year (at the start of QUARANTINE) that I would be actually writing and FINISHING my first multi-chaptered fic since I was probably.... I don't know, fourteen? I wouldn't have believed you. But I'm here! Mostly this: thank you all, so much, to anyone who left a comment or a kudos. I really mean it when I say this wouldn't have gotten done without you. 
> 
> And now, have some lovely, lovely Romya fluff, to polish everything off.

“Let’s go, boys. Get it the fuck out of here.”

Zsasz had craned his neck up to look at the chandelier while the workers set up the little lift. Varya had been gone for about two weeks, finishing up some last-minute loose-ends that needed her immediate attention in Saint-Petersburg, which left Roman back in Gotham feeling antsy. In the time that he had known Varya, they hadn’t spent more than, what--three days? Maybe four, apart?

He’d tried to insist that she let him come along. They were engaged now--soon, she wouldn’t be an Astakhov anymore, but a Sionis, and even with that aside they had already taken the necessary steps to secure Roman’s place inheriting her father’s gun-running empire. He _should_ have been there. But she had insisted it was something she needed to do by herself, and Roman had stamped down his instinct to say, _look where that got you last time._

“It’s only been here for a month,” Zsasz said. Roman sucked his teeth, resisting the urge to scoff.

“I hate looking at it. Chandeliers stopped being interesting in the 16th century.”

Zsasz nodded somberly in agreement.

“Make sure they don’t fuck anything up,” Roman told Zsasz, checking his phone to see if there had been any texts regarding Varya’s return that day; but only the one where she’d told him the plane was taking off sat in his inbox. He was considering the logistics of calling the airport and demanding immediate information when he heard the front doors of the club open.

It was Varya. She was in-tact, in one piece. She looked more put-together than he had expected from a twelve-hour flight, the dark waves of her hair pinned back at the sides prettily. Her gaze landed on him and she said, sweetly, “Hello, lover.”

Two weeks. It had been two weeks of only hearing her voice through the phone with the sound of foreign voices rumbling around her; two weeks of not waking up to her next to him, of her sleepy smile in the morning as she tucked herself into his chest, of the way she leaned over when she was pouring him a cup of coffee so that she could kiss his cheek; two weeks of pacing around, wondering if there was going to be a second fuss about the fact that she wanted Roman to take the reins of the business.

Russia didn’t make her happy; he could hear it on the phone. _You would be happier if you let me come with you_ , he had said to her on the phone.

 _Yes,_ she had replied, _you are right, Romy. I am always happier with you._

“If I had to wait one more fucking minute to see you,” Roman said as he closed the distance between them, taking her face in his hands, “I was going to lose it.”

Varya dropped her purse on the floor in favor of wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him. If she was tense from her flight, it didn’t show; she melted immediately into his embrace and smiled against his lips. “Were you so worried I wouldn’t come back?” she asked, and she waved the engagement ring she wore in front of him. “After you put this giant anchor on my finger?”

He grinned. “You’ve seen straight through my plan. Foiled.”

“I would consider it successful. I am _here_ , after all.” Her expression softened. “I would always come back to you, my love. No ring required.”

Roman tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “But the ring is a nice bonus, and you love it _and_ me, and you could never imagine a world without me in it.”

“Yes, these are all true things.” She peeked over his shoulder, smiling a little as her gaze swept along the length of the chandelier. “Hm, what’s this?”

“Oh!” He smiled brilliantly and brought Varya around to where Zsasz had been purveying the chandelier and the handymen. “I’m getting rid of the chandelier. Got tired of looking at it.”

“What a shame,” she sighed, “I liked the chandelier.”

Roman paused. That couldn’t be true; not _really_ , right? Varya didn’t _really_ like the chandelier. Zsasz was grinning like a madman, and Roman couldn’t shake the feeling that he was slowly becoming the punchline to a joke that he didn’t know about.

“You’re kidding,” he said, staring at her. “You’ve never mentioned wanting a chandelier before now.”

“You wanna keep it?” Zsasz asked. Roman’s stomach churned at the thought.

Varya laughed and kissed the corner of his frowning mouth. “Whatever makes you happy makes me happy,” she murmured—and then she was looking at him with those doe-eyes and he nearly forgot about the chandelier entirely, more enchanted with the idea that his fiance was home.

“You know what would make me happy, future Mrs. Sionis?” he asked as he turned her around and walked her towards the door. He slid his arms around her waist, kissing her neck. “A little one on one time.”

Varya made a soft, delighted _hmm_ sound, like she actually needed to consider it (which she didn’t, of course; he knew that she had missed him just as he had missed her). When they reached the elevators, she pressed the button and turned to him and stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Finish the chandelier business,” she murmured, the door sliding open behind her, “and I’ll wait for you upstairs.”

“Oh?” he rumbled. He slid his hands along the curve of her hips, humming thoughtfully, and kissed just under her jaw. “Well, aren’t you in a bossy mood? I’ll let it slide, but only—” Roman kissed down the slope of her neck. “—because you are _so_ lovely, and all mine again.”

She squirmed. “I wasn’t ever _not_ yours, Romy.”

“That’s right, baby.” Roman shooed her into the elevator and then returned to the main room of the club. It took longer than he anticipated, making sure they didn’t fuck anything up (and threatening to take _excellent_ care of them if they did). The whole ordeal, to oversee the chandelier debacle until it was being carried out, took a little over an hour; by the time Roman was putting himself in the elevator to go upstairs, he felt like _he’d_ gotten off of a twelve hour flight.

Varya _was_ waiting for him, just as promised—freshly showered and dressed, having slipped on the silk teddy Roman liked the best. She was curled up on the bed reading when he found her, and the little smile that curved her lips when she saw him made him feel pleasantly warm.

“Oh, you _are_ a vision,” Roman sighed wistfully, shrugging his velvet suit jacket off and stepping out of his shoes. He made his way over to the side of the bed that she was on, running his hand along her thigh. “Why did you even bother wearing this, hm?”

“Because you like to unwrap your gifts,” Varya replied. Her lashes fluttered when Roman pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss just past her knee. He glanced up to her, purring against her skin.

“Is there a gift to unwrap?”

“Me, of course.”

He laughed and sidled up her body, climbing onto the bed and kissing her. Varya sighed prettily into their liplock; her fingers knotted in his hair and she shifted under him, hooking her leg around his hip.

“Already?” he murmured playfully. “Well, you really did miss me then.”

“Don’t tease me, Romy. My heart can’t take it.” Her tone was teasing. Her teeth caught his lower lip, and she sat up just enough so that she could switch the weights of their bodies; once she was comfortably straddling him, she guided his hand up her thigh and made an inquisitive noise as she squirmed on his lap. “Hmm, seems you missed me, too.”

Roman bit back a sound, watching her make easy work of his belt. “You’re going to be a Sionis, kitten. That means your place is here, not in Russia.” _Of course I missed you,_ the unspoken words went.

Varya’s eyes glimmered playfully. He could imagine what she was thinking about saying: that she may become a Sionis in name, but there would always be Astakhov blood in her, and maybe that was what Roman liked best about her—that she was a domesticated wildcat.

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his chest, undoing buttons leisurely, taking her time; he let himself indulge in the feeling of her mouth skimming up his throat, thinking about how he had been very strong and composed to have gone without her attention for so long.

“Romy,” she murmured, her voice silky, “have you ever thought about having a baby?”

She followed the question up with a slick, open-mouthed kiss, stopping Roman from being able to respond right away. He could have forgotten about the question entirely, if he wasn’t aware that she liked to do that—kiss him the way that he liked, after or right before dropping bad news in his lap.

“A what now?” Roman asked absently, when she did pull away from him. His fingers curled around the hem of her dress, his head swooning in sweet anticipation, and he buried his face into her neck.

She said again, sighing at his mouth on her, “A baby.”

He snorted. He gave so little thought to the idea of having children that her words seemed like a joke to him. He kissed the underside of her jaw. “No, why would I?”

Now, Varya pulled back from him, her dark brows pulled together. All of her playfulness was gone. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“I’m—I don’t know, babies cry and scream and they don’t even start showing a ROI until they’re at least twenty-five,” Roman replied, trying to sit up and pull her back to him; but when he did, she pressed the palm of her hand on his chest and pushed him back down.

“So you want to marry me, but you wouldn’t want a child with me?” the brunette asked, her eyes narrowing. Roman sighed, passing a hand over his face.

“You’re being weird about this. Why are you being weird about this?”

Varya rolled her lower lip between her teeth. “I am not,” she said. “ _You’re_ being weird. What man wants to marry his young, beautiful wife and not have a baby with her?”

Roman felt his headache beginning to form. The logistics of raising a child were so unfathomably beyond him. Would he make an amazing father? Of course he would; there could be, he reasoned, no one better. But just because you were good at something didn’t mean you needed to be out doing it all the time. “Me. I’m that man.”

“Well,” Varya said.

“Well?” He was watching her, the sudden nervousness that he so rarely saw with her. _Guilty_ , he thought, when she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“I am just glad I know.”

He groaned. He pushed himself up, running his hands along her thighs. “This isn’t how you normally ask for things that you want.”

“A baby is not a—a necklace, or a shiny trinket, Roman.”

Roman grimaced. _I guess_ , he thought absently. “So you _do_ want one. Is that what’s going on? I got you a nice engagement ring, the one you wanted. I’m giving you my last name. There isn’t anyone in the whole fucking world who could have as much as you, if you asked for it. So what, you want a baby?”

“ _Vso._ I am tired of talking about it.”

“Oh, well, isn’t that a little inconvenient?” Roman narrowed his eyes, feeling his irritation spike a little. _Mouthy, spoiled girl,_ he thought. “Spit it out, then, and we can be done with it.”

“Romy,” Varya sighed, reaching to pull the teddy off over her head, “I don’t want to.”

“Ah-ah. No distracting me,” Roman quipped, pulling it back down (against his better judgement). “You _wanted to_ enough to bring it up, in the middle of our blissful reunion after you had been gone for two weeks, so.” Roman was trying not to be too irritated, but he was sure that it was showing; all he had wanted was to get that fucking chandelier out of his club, come upstairs, and spend some quality time with his soon-to-be-wife. Varya had crossed her arms over his chest, her lower lip pouting out _just a little_ , and all of her good humor was gone. “So just tell me what it is. You want something to nurture? I’ll get you a—a fern, or—pet, anything you want, a—”

“I am pregnant.”

“—puppy, or...”

Roman’s voice trailed off, gently overlapping with her announcement. He stared at her. Her cheeks had flushed, and she looked so terribly embarrassed—something he had never seen from her before—that he couldn’t help but feel a _little_ endeared to her.

“Ah—what?”

“I was very sick in Russia.” Varya pulled at the threading on his shirt, beneath a button. “I went to the doctor. They told me I am pregnant.”

“Oh.” This was different; and not what he had expected. He thought—well, he had certainly thought she was _asking_ for a baby, not that she’d already gotten one. From him. His baby. He felt a little dazed. “Mine?”

“No, it was an immaculate conception. The doctor was truly baffled.”

“Alright,” Roman muttered, scrunching up his nose at her tone. She looked thoroughly admonished, watching him. He kept turning the words over in his mind; _mine, my Varya, my baby_ , wondering when it would feel less charming, if it would wear off. “You’re sure?”

Her expression softened. “Yes, Roman,” she murmured. There was an uncertainty in her gaze. Varya carried herself like she was much older than she was, but Roman was reminded, quite fiercely by the soft edges of her doe-eyes, that she was just shy of twenty-six, and had spent much of her life under her father’s oppressive thumb.

Neither of them had very good experiences with parents. But that didn’t matter: Roman was very sure that he could be an incredible parent, ten times the father his own had been and a million times better than Nikita Astakhov. Not that it was a very high bar to beat, but—he could far exceed it.

“You _were_ very good at babying Ilarion,” Roman said casually, watching his words curve the corner of her mouth a little. He smoothed his hand over her stomach and thought, _that’s mine, in there._

“There is—something else.” Varya’s gaze flickered over his face. He made a small, soft sound, kissing the slope of her collarbone and closing his eyes. He was barely listening to her by then. He kept thinking about it: his Varya, in sweet sundresses that allowed the for the slope of her stomach; his Varya, cradling _his (_ theirs, but also, his) baby in her arms, singing little stupid Russian lullabies to it. It was the ultimate devotion, Roman reasoned lazily, feeling the warmth of her skin as he skimmed his fingers against her abdomen, to carry someone’s child in your womb. The epitome of devotion, even.

“—you listening to me?”

“What?” Roman asked, his eyes opening as he tilted his head to look at her. “Yes, of course.”

She arched a dark, elegant brow at him. “Oh, is that so?”

“I always listen when you talk to me, V.”

“Mm.” She didn’t sound convinced. “So what do you think about for names?”

“Roman, of course,” he replied absently, flipping her so that her back was on the bed, so that he could press a kiss just above her belly button. _Mine_ . _My Varya, my baby._ “The second. None of the ‘junior’ shit.”

“What if it’s a girl?”

He sighed. “I don’t know, pet, then you can name her whatever you want.”

She smiled, amused. Roman was very sure it was a boy. He nuzzled the warm skin of her stomach. She said, “Yes, Roman, then. And the other?”

He wondered if he could hear the heartbeat already. “The other what?”

“The other name,” she reiterated, watching him as she lay propped against the pillows. “For the other baby.”

“I’m—” He paused, his gaze flickering up to her. “What?”

“I thought you always listen when I talk to you?”

He sat up. “The other _what_?”

Varya regarded him with a level of casual smugness that he almost found endearing. She replied, “The other baby. The second one. There are two.”

 _Twins._ Roman’s heart stuttered painfully in his chest. He searched Varya’s face for a hint that she might be grieving: and there was a little bit, there, in the downturn of her lips when her expression relaxed. He had never liked Ilarion, but he knew that Varya had loved her own twin brother like he was a part of her.

“Two babies,” he repeated.

She nodded. “Yes. They think, anyway. It may be too soon to tell, but, the doctor did say that he thought he heard two heartbeats.”

“Oh.” Roman felt a little dizzy. _Two_ babies. Could Varya handle two babies? Could _he_? Two little monsters, demanding his attention, demanding her attention, screaming and crying and—

“Roman.” Varya’s voice was soft, like velvet. She reached for him and brought him close, pressing their foreheads together. “Are you freaking out?”

“No. I’m good.”

She kissed the corner of his mouth, and then his jaw. “Do you promise?”

He let his shoulders relax a little. “I’m good, baby. I’m—there’s no one that could be a better fucking dad than me. Even to twins.”

“In spite of twins.”

“That’s fucking right.”

Roman kissed her then, and the rapid, uneasy fluttering of his heart didn’t cease; it persisted, in a strange, fervent way. It was excitement, he realized. Varya let go of a tension he hadn’t realized she was holding, and she surrendered to his kiss—the way that she knew he liked, a little relinquishing of what control she had—and she sighed sweetly, wistfully. Her arms wound around his neck to hold him close. She returned each second of the kiss, like she would let the breath run out of her before she broke it first.

“Roman the second. Maybe Roma, for short. And with Ilarion as a middle name,” Varya reiterated, and Roman made an absent agreeing noise; “and then for a girl, I get to pick. What if we have two boys?”

He hummed. “Two more Romans, of course.”

“Stop,” she groaned. “You can’t name them _both_ Roman.”

“ _Au contraire,_ baby.” Roman hoisted her up, settling her on his lap again, so that he could get a good look at her. “I’m Roman Sionis. I can do whatever—”

“—whatever you want,” Varya finished, not without a little sarcastic flourish to her voice. Roman grinned.

“That’s exactly right.”


End file.
